


Things I've Learned from a Broken Mirror

by katspaw



Category: EXO (Band), Subarashiki Kono Sekai | The World Ends With You
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-27
Updated: 2016-09-27
Packaged: 2018-08-18 03:58:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8148412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katspaw/pseuds/katspaw
Summary: Prompt code: TW017
Junmyeon is an up and coming celebrity until he loses everything in a car crash. If he wants a second chance at life, he'll need to find a partner and fight for his life in a alternate version of Seoul that exists alongside the world he's used to - but it may not be as simple as just surviving.





	

**Author's Note:**

> First off, I want to thank the mods of this fest. I blew through every single deadline and they nonetheless remained incredibly patient with me. Thank you, so much, and I hope I wasn’t too much trouble for you.  
> For my prompter: thank you a million times over for requesting this! I have to be honest, I wasn’t planning on joining this fest, but when I saw your prompt I couldn’t pass it up. Suchen and TWEWY, what could be more perfect? Please hit me up after reveals and let’s chat!  
> For those unfamiliar with The World Ends with You: you do not need to have played the game, read the wiki, or so much as looked at a Gameboy in your life to understand the plot (I hope!). I tried very hard to explain any game mechanics or plot points, but if there’s anything that’s confusing I’m happy to answer your questions anonymously in the comments. 
> 
> I'll be adding at some point a map of Jung-gu including all the places Jongdae and Junmyeon go to on each day, as well as links to the outfits they wear on day five. If things are mentioned by name, they are a real place or a real store! All the brands mentioned by name are also real, and all of them have been endorsed at some point by EXO or ex-EXO members. I apologize if there's any geography or cultural etc. mistakes in this, and please feel free to correct me if you notice any errors - I realized shortly after taking on this prompt that having been to SK only once I might not be the best person to actually write this story, since so much of the original TWEWY is a love letter to Shibuya. Still, I tried my best to capture the feeling of Seoul. I picked Jung-gu for its historical significance and the variety of locales inside that district - and also because EXO has been there in an episode of showtime where they went to some of the places I've written about. Maybe watching it again will help with visualization ;)

Junmyeon's life ended on a cool spring day. It had begun normally enough, his 6 A.M. alarm signaling it was time to drag himself out of bed and shower before his manager showed up to take him to whatever the schedule for the day was. He heard the plan in the back of the car on the way over: 8 A.M. photoshoot for a fashion magazine, then filming a commercial for a beauty product at 1, dinner with a director who was interested in signing him for a movie deal, then answering fan mail in the evening until it was time to sleep and do it all over again. His mother's birthday was coming up at the end of the week, but his manager assured him he'd already picked up a card and gift and arranged for flowers to be delivered at Junmyeon's family home; all he needed to do was sign his name.

None of this was unusual for Junmyeon. At 25 he was already a national sensation renowned for his good looks and acting skills. Suho, as he was known to everyone but close friends and family, was all over billboards, magazine covers, and movie screens, and had been from a young age. It was a life many people would have killed for, but for months Junmyeon had felt like it was killing him instead. Although technically he was in charge of his own schedule, in practice his manager picked out the best activities for him to promote himself, arranged deals and meetings and collaborations, introduced him to people and steered him away from others.

It was probably just that he hadn't gotten enough sleep, but he felt off. He'd stayed up late reading comments on the net about his latest drama, even though he'd known it was a bad idea. There were plenty of positive responses out there to his work, but somehow he always managed to find the criticism, and it would sit with him for days, the words turning over in his mind when his mind wandered. The new drama was a tragedy. _His crying face is ugly,_ one of the users had written on the forum he'd checked. _He's totally unconvincing. How does anyone buy into him as an actor?_ The words echoed in his head during his photoshoot. He was modeling hats, which unfortunately required a lot of portraits. Between his face still slightly puffy from sleep and the negativity dampening his spirits, he and the director were both frustrated. There hadn't been a lot of usable shots so far, even though they'd been at it for two hours already.

"Why don't you get some air?" His manager suggested finally. "Come back in twenty, thirty minutes and we'll get a fresh start on it?"

Junmyeon sighed. The director was looking at the photos they'd already gotten, his frown darkening his face. "Yeah, okay," he agreed. "I'm going to go get a coffee, I'll be right back."

He should have just gone to the lobby of the building, gotten a coffee from the small shop run there for the staff's convenience, but he was feeling restless. Going outside and just standing around was too risky; he'd get mobbed - but the idea of fresh air sounded very appealing, especially fresh air by himself, away from fussing makeup artists, security guards, the constant presence of his manager at his elbow.

He glanced out the window to the parking lot below, where the car his manager had picked him up in this morning was waiting. It was quiet outside; the fans knew his schedule and wouldn't be lining up in large numbers until he was due to leave for his next appointment. He stared at the door of the car, the wheel that he could see through the windshield, and made a split second decision. He got the keys from his manager under the pretense of having left something in the back, and before he knew it he was sprinting outside, hopping into the driver’s seat before the fans could figure out what was happening, and rapidly pulling out of the lot.

It wasn’t until he had turned down several side roads and ended up on a main thoroughfare that Junmyeon realized two things. The first was that he had no idea where he had been planning on going. The second was that it had been a very long time since he had driven anywhere himself, and the traffic was moving very fast.

He turned right the first chance he got, feeling nervous about the speed of the cars following beside him. As it turned out, they were not the ones he needed to worry about. He was nearing the end of the block and wondering if he should try to turn or keep going forward when there was a screeching sound from nearby. Almost faster than he could follow, a car whipped around the corner, moving too fast to fully clear the turn. It was heading right for him, in the opposite lane. Junmyeon panicked, jerking the wheel wildly, but he wasn’t fast enough. The other car slammed into his, knocking the air out of him and colliding with a horrible scream of twisting metal and skidding breaks. His head flew forward with the force of the impact, and everything around him went black.

 

 

The next thing Junmyeon knew, he was lying face down on the ground. There was the soft murmur of voices around him, and the sounds of the city: cars passing by in the road, the roar of an airplane in the distance, the thudding of shoes on pavement.

'I'm okay?' he thought, bracing himself up on arm. The first sign that something was off was that he was on the sidewalk, and there were no emergency vehicles or paramedics in sight. He'd definitely been on the road a second ago, and that other car, the one that came around the turn too fast, there was no way they had missed each other.

"Maybe I hit my head..." he muttered, mostly to himself. If he had hit the other car and gotten a concussion, maybe he had gotten out to help the other guy and just passed out on the side of the road. Maybe the ambulance had come and gone and they had just missed him lying there, somehow. But the street beside him looked nothing like where he'd been driving. He must have wandered somewhere before he'd passed out.

Junmyeon stood up gingerly, brushing himself off. Strangely, he didn't seem to have any injuries. Had he missed the other car after all? Maybe he had stopped the car after the near miss and fainted from the shock. Still, it was strange that no one had brought him to the hospital, or called his manager. By now he had to be in a panic.

He cast a quick look around. There was a guy smoking on the street corner a foot or two away who seemed wholly unconcerned that there had been a man lying on the ground next to him moments ago, much less that said man was a celebrity. In fact no one was giving him second glances or watching him from a distance the way his younger fans tended to do. It was strange. Junmyeon couldn't remember the last time he'd been in public with his face uncovered that people hadn't swarmed him, trying to give him gifts or take photos of him. But the people passing by him barely seemed to notice him at all.

Well. He had just been lying in the street like a crazy person. Junmyeon pulled out his phone, checking through his notifications, but there was nothing besides the call from his manager earlier in the day that he had ignored, the one that came while he was in the car. No calls since, no texts, but he had service.

'Hey, sorry about missing your call, I was driving,' he typed into kakao. 'I'm fine but I'm not sure where I am right now. I think I may have been involved in an accident.'

A box saying 'failed to deliver' popped up immediately after he hit send. Junmyeon sent a few more messages with with similar results. When he gave up and tried to call his manager instead, the call refused to even connect. Still, his phone was showing he had full bars. 'Must be broken,' Junmyeon thought, exasperated.

Nothing to do about it, then. He tucked his phone away and turned to the guy that was still smoking to his left. "Excuse me, could I borrow your phone to make a call?" He asked politely. The man ignored him, finishing his cigarette and putting it out on the curb with the toe of his shoe. "Could I please borrow your cell phone for a minute?" Junmyeon repeated, speaking louder. His smile felt a little strained. The man didn't react at all, walking past Junmyeon to enter an office building on his right.

"Jerk," Junmyeon muttered under his breath. He looked back at the street. Cars were trawling back and forth along the busy road, and there were still no signs of ambulances or police looking for him. 

After several more unsuccessful attempts to borrow a phone from an older woman, a teenage boy, and the secretary of the office building next to him, Junmyeon was almost ready to go and lie back down on the ground. He'd checked himself in the camera of his phone and he didn't look terrible or dirty; it was incomprehensible how so many people had decided to totally ignore him. There was only one option left, and it was one he had been dreading. Still, he had no choice.

The next time a group of young women passed by, he jumped up. "Excuse me, misses," he began, flashing a winning smile any of his fans would have loved to be on the receiving end of, "but could I bother you... to..." He trailed off as the girls continued walking, seeming not to have noticed him at all. Even an anti-fan should have some reaction, surely. He'd never felt so stumped. 

His shock was interrupted by the sound of laughter from behind him. Junmyeon whirled around to see two men around his age. One of them was doubled over in laughter, his jaw looking a little dislocated, while the other watched calmly, the corners of his mouth turned up. More importantly to Junmyeon, they were both looking right at him. 

Before he could speak, the laughing guy recovered himself, straightening up with a grin still plastered to his face. The man was actually fairly attractive when he wasn't laughing. "Weird seeing teenage girls just walk by you?" He asked, and Junmyeon got the sense he was being teased rather than mocked, even though he'd never met this person. 

Junmyeon ignored his question. "Could I please borrow one of your cell phones?" He asked instead. "I really need to call my manager."

This time the other man answered him. "You can, if you want, but you won't reach him from here." He sounded so assured that Junmyeon was a bit taken aback. The man studied him thoughtfully. "Do you know what happened to you?" He asked. 

Something in his voice made Junmyeon's stomach drop. "I... I was involved in an accident, I think," he said cautiously. "Is the other guy okay? Did you see it happen?"

The first man answered him. "No," he said simply. "He's not alright, and neither are you." He watched as Junmyeon felt himself over for injuries, apparently waiting for a different reaction. 

"Lu Han," his friend prodded. 

"You're dead," The man - Lu Han - said, his voice unexpectedly soft. Junmyeon stared.

Dead. He was dead. It almost made sense, as ridiculous as it sounded. The car coming towards him, waking up far from where he'd been, the phone with no service, the people that couldn't see him - but it couldn't be real. His dilemma must have shown on his face, because Lu Han's friend looked suddenly concerned. 

"Take a deep breath," he heard, and then, "I don't think he's listening, Minseok."

He wasn't. "Am I a ghost?" He asked disbelievingly, looking at his hand and half expecting it to turn transparent. 

"Something like that," Lu Han answered. "You're pretty pale though. Maybe you were already a ghost!"

"Give him a second, Lu Han," Minseok chided. 

"That's right, give me a second, Lu Han," Junmyeon cried hysterically, running his hands through his hair. Minseok and Lu Han exchanged glances, but he barely noticed. 

"It's more that you're not totally dead yet. You're in between," Minseok offered cautiously. "This space that we're in is the underground. You can see people in the other world, but they can't see you. But there's a way you can go back to the other world."

That got Junmyeon's attention. "How?" He demanded. "I can go back to life?"

"You can have a shot at it." Minseok seemed unphased by Junmyeon's panic. "There's a game we run here for people like you. You can enter, and if you survive the whole thing and win, you might be able to go back. Interested?"

The whole thing sounded a little too good to be true, but Junmyeon nodded. Having some kind of plan, a solution, made him feel better about the situation, more in control. Dead. He couldn’t be dead. He had a schedule – plans – he thought suddenly of his mother’s birthday in three days, how he hadn’t spoken to her in as many weeks, the impersonal card he hadn’t picked out and hadn’t signed, and felt sick. That couldn’t be the last memory he left behind.

“We’ll explain the rules for you then,” Lu Han said, and Junmyeon felt suddenly a little out of his depth. It seemed a little bit like making a deal with a devil. Two normal looking devils, anyway. He hadn’t seen any horns or tails.

“First,” Minseok picked up where his friend had left off, holding up one finger. “This game isn’t free. You have to put up some collateral to play.”

“Collateral?” Junmyeon repeated weakly. He’d been right, after all. It wasn’t that simple.

“Your entry fee,” Lu Han agreed. “The thing that’s most important to you. A second chance at life is worth that much, don’t you think?” He and Minseok exchanged a glance. “Some people don’t even know what their entry fee is going to be until they’ve paid it. It’s not always what you think it’s going to be, it turns out.” 

Junmyeon thought hard about what was most important to him. His career? His good looks? He wouldn’t be half as successful as was without them, he knew – he was thoroughly average in terms of knowledge and language skills, he was awkward and nervous more often than not in interviews, and his jokes always seemed to fall flat. Other than that, he didn’t really have much. The genuine friends he’d had in high school had fallen away after he’d become a celebrity. It was too hard to find the time to see them in between all his interviews and appearances and performances. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d spent any significant events with his family, either. When he was a teenager dreaming of fame and fortune, it hadn’t looked much like the life he’d ended up living.

Still, he could spare something like his face, for a shot at getting back to his life. “Okay,” he said finally, looking between Minseok and Lu Han anxiously. “How… do I give you the entry fee?”

“You’ll lose it when we give you these,” Minseok supplied, producing a handful of pins from his pocket. Junmyeon stared. They were small, about 4 centimeters in diameter, and covered in colorful print.

“I’m sorry,” he said eventually. “How are pins going to….?” Was this life or death game going to be flipping pins like a child?

 

“They’re more than pins,” Minseok answered him, smiling faintly. “You’ll figure it out. Take the pins, use them, and follow the instructions you get on your phone.” He held out his hand. Junmyeon hesitated. This was it, then. Whatever strange thing was supposed to happen now, it was better than the alternative. He’d had enough of shouting at passersby that couldn’t see him and worrying himself sick over his situation. But Minseok didn’t immediately hand over the pins. 

“You should know,” he said conversationally, as though they were discussing the weather, “we’re not your friends.” Junmyeon looked up at him, startled. “Once you enter the game, we’re not going to help you out,” Minseok continued, his light tone in stark contrast to the threatening words. “Actually, Lu Han and I are harriers. It’s our job to actively try and take you out of the game. We won’t attack you directly, but we’re supposed to challenge you. Just fair warning.”

Lu Han was nodding beside him. “You’ll have to work with the other players,” he told Junmyeon. “Accomplish the missions, don’t get erased. And remember to go into stores. You can go anywhere inside Jung-gu. I’d try Myeongdong if I were you. Get some clothes and maybe some food. The shopkeepers in some stores can see you if you’re a player.”

None of this was making any sense. “Why would I need clothes or food? I thought I was dead!” Junmyeon could hear the hysterical note remerging in his voice, but he couldn’t help it. He’d felt secure for a moment, but rapidly the situation seemed to be sliding out of his grasp again.

 

“They’ll help you fight,” Minseok said pleasantly, and pressed the pins into Junmyeon’s hand. “For what it’s worth, you seem like a decent guy. I hope you don’t get erased.” 

Junmyeon drew his hand back, looking at the pins, then up at Minseok and Lu Han, who were watching him impassively. “Wait, what do you mean—”

But he was interrupted by a strange feeling traveling through his body from the pins in his hand. Or really, just one of them, the plain black one with the elegant skull design. It felt like electricity moving up his body, charging up each vertebra of his spine and reverberating in his skull. He felt a sharp pain, and then –

He stared at the pins in his hand uncomprehendingly. Something had changed, but he didn’t know what.

“Feel different?” Lu Han asked. He looked up to see the two of them still standing there, watching him. “You shouldn’t waste too much time thinking about your entry fee, you know. Now that you’re in, Noise are going to start turning up.”

Ignoring the last part of that sentence, Suho scanned over his body quickly, looking for any change. A check with the camera on his phone showed his face was totally unchanged. Strange. He could hear and see just fine, he remembered – he remembered his manager, and his schedule, and there was some family member, something he’d had to do at the end of the week, but the thought was indistinct. Everything after work seemed to fade into a vague blackness. He had an apartment, but he couldn’t remember what it looked like. He couldn’t remember moving in, either, although there had been a friend who had helped him – probably, someone, but he couldn’t think of their name or their face, it was just gone. Anything that wasn’t work felt like it had been gently wiped away.

Suho was interrupted from his dilemma by a strange crackling sound. He whipped around to see a lurid green frog on the street, hopping rapidly towards him and emitting that bizarre and strangely threatening sound. It was larger than any real frog he’d ever seen and seemed to travel around the cars in the street without difficulty, hopping past them as though they were nothing. It filled him with sudden fear, for reasons he couldn’t explain even to himself.

“You should run.” Suho turned to see Lu Han looking at him. Minseok was nowhere in sight. “Go find someone to partner with, or you’ll get erased before you really start to play.” He gave Suho an apologetic smile. “I can’t help you more than that, sorry! Good luck.” He was gone before Suho could figure out what had happened.

Just him and the frog then. This was the first he had heard of about needing a partner, but it seemed like there were plenty of things Minseok and Lu Han had conveniently forgotten to mention. He cursed under his breath and started to run. Behind him, the crackling and buzzing of the frog followed.

Suho ran without aim, starting to recognize places as he passed. He certainly was in Jung-gu, there was city hall – actually, he had to have been near here when his car crashed; he recognized the name of the street. He fumbled with the pins in his hands as he ran, clipping them clumsily to his shirt. Minseok had said he would figure out how to use them, but for the life of him he had no idea what he was supposed to do – throw them at the weird frog maybe? Were they innocuous looking bombs or something?

When he glanced behind himself a moment later he was alarmed to discover two more of the strange frogs had joined the first and they were lurching after him, starting to close the gap. He darted a quick left and burst out onto the open field of Seoul Plaza. To his surprise, there was a group of people there that looked up as he approached. It took him a minute to realize they were all wearing pins, and all of them had the same black and white skull shaped pin that was now firmly clipped onto his sensible white dress shirt. Suho skidded to a stop in front of the group, looking between them and the monsters behind him. He couldn’t lead these things into a crowd of people; he’d have to distract them and get them away.

Before he could move, however, there was a bright ray of light from behind him, and one of the frogs fizzled out of existence. The remaining two were similarly dispatched as he turned to watch two of the women in the group touching the pins on their shirts and holding up their hands.

“Thank you,” he managed breathlessly. “What – what were those? And how did you get rid of them?”

One of the women smiled at him, tucking a strand of her dark hair behind her ear. “Noise. I don’t know why they exist, but they seem like they’re everywhere in the UG. And if you don’t have a partner, your pins won’t work for you, but it’s easy enough to get the hang of. I’m Irene, by the way.” She extended a hand, and Suho flushed with embarrassment. Life or death situation aside, it was rude to start demanding answers from someone without at least introducing himself first.

He didn’t want to introduce himself with his stage name, but somehow when he reached for his first name, he came up empty handed. He HAD another name, he knew he did, but like the details of his apartment or faces of his family, it was somehow missing from his memory. _My entry fee._

He’d valued his job, the excitement, the screaming fans, the endless parade of celebrities, the magazine spreads of his face, the admiring letters he got in the mail, the requests for autographs from complete strangers. That was what he’d wanted his whole life, the path he’d toiled and dreamed and planned for, but somehow it wasn’t what he really valued, after all. His real self, the guy who wanted to spend his free time out of view of the cameras laying on his couch and reading manhwa, the person he was when no one was around to see him – that person, that identity, was the price the game had taken. He had nothing left but the shell he wore, the beautiful exterior that was always polite and handsome and thought of nothing but his fans. The realization was crushing.

He forced a smile onto his face despite the feeling of his stomach dropping out. “Suho,” he managed, stepping forward to shake Irene’s hand. “Thank you for your help. I would have been done for without you.”

“Oh, it _is_ you!” The woman who had destroyed the last two Noise spoke up. He assumed she was Irene’s partner for the game. “I thought I recognized your face. I’m a big fan.”

“Thank you,” he said, turning gracefully to greet her. “What’s your name?”

“Seulgi,” she smiled at him, flashing a row of perfect teeth.

This dance of pleasantries felt bizarrely normal for the kind of day he was having. Dead, pursued by monster frogs, and stripped of his identity, but apparently he was still ready to greet female fans with a charming smile. Suho forced himself to swallow down the manic bubble of laughter that threatened to burst out of him with a firm shake of his head. “Is everyone here also participating in the game?” He trailed off uncertainly, but Irene was nodding.

“Everyone with a pin. You’re actually one of the last in.” She sounded almost apologetic. “I think there’s a few people who haven’t found a partner yet. And there might be more coming. I think we all woke up more or less nearby.”

That was interesting. So everyone who had died recently in the city was playing? It seemed like the group was fairly small, maybe thirty or forty people, and they were all younger people, he noticed – no elderly or even really middle aged players. Maybe only some people were chosen to play. Suho excused himself to Irene and Seulgi and wandered through the crowd. Most people were talking or examining their pins. Irene was right; many of them had already chosen partners. Suho’s inquiries were met with apologetic looks or shrugs.

He’d almost given up when he caught sight of a man standing with his back to the group, staring at the screen of his phone. He was hunched over a little, his shoulders pressed up tight in an uncomfortable, tense little line. It didn’t exactly scream ‘talk to me!’ but Suho was getting desperate.

“Excuse me!” He called out politely, approaching the man cautiously. There was no response. “Hello!” he tried again. Still, the man remained with his shoulders firmly squared, either not hearing or not caring to hear Suho’s greeting. Well, no wonder he had no partner, if he was enough of a jerk to ignore anyone that tried to make conversation with him.

Or maybe his entry fee had been his sense of hearing. Suho felt a hot lick of shame. How could he blame someone for what they couldn’t help? He walked around the side until he was facing the other man head on and waved politely at him. “Hi, excuse me!”

The man’s head jerked up, a scowl already in place. It was a shame, Suho realized, as he was handsome otherwise; he had sharp, high cheekbones and surprisingly delicate features. The pissed off look wasn’t doing much for him, though. He stared Suho down for a tense moment in which Suho’s questions quietly died on his lips. He swallowed uncomfortably.

 

When it became clear the other guy wasn’t going to volunteer anything, Suho cleared his throat and tried again. “I’m looking for a partner,” he offered. “Do you have one yet? We could—”

But the man was already shaking his head, scowl still firmly in place.

“You do have a partner?” Suho asked, heart sinking. He’d asked everyone else, he was sure – if not this guy, he’d have to leave the square and start looking through the city for any other players that hadn’t found their way here. But the guy was shaking his head again.

“Okay…” Suho said slowly. He could hear himself getting a little passive aggressive; it was a bad habit his manager had scolded him for more than once, but he couldn’t help it. “So you don’t have a partner, but you don’t want to work with me?”

The guy gave a firm nod and looked back at his phone. Suho heaved a sigh. He didn’t really know how to handle this situation, honestly. No one in his professional life had told him no in such an abrupt way. Probably whoever he was outside of work, not-Suho, he had dealt with this, but celebrities and the people that worked in the industry were more tactful. Or maybe just more afraid of upsetting him. He winced a little at the thought.

He was trying to come up with a more convincing argument, since apparently ‘if we don’t work together we’ll both get killed’ wasn’t compelling enough for this guy, when he felt his phone going off in his pocket. Suho dug it out, staring at the icon on the screen. Despite its previous unhelpfulness, his phone seemed to have finally caught a signal. The icon indicating he had a text message hovered at the top corner of the screen. He opened it, noticing out of the corner of his eye that the man in front of him had also gotten something.

The text message was as simple as it was inexplicable. ‘Shinsegae. 60 minutes. Timer begins now.’

Suho winced as his left hand was struck with a sudden pain. When he looked down at it, expecting to see a scratch or a bruise he’d missed, he was instead met with a jumble of black numbers moving over his skin like some kind of magical tattoo. 59:57, the numbers read, and as he watched the seven became a six, and then a five. _It’s counting down_ , Suho realized. He remembered something Lu Han had said – accomplish the missions, don’t get erased. Well, the instructions were clear enough, he supposed. Go to the Shinsegae building. There was only one around here, in Myeongdong.

 

Everyone else seemed to have gotten the same message. They were moving out, some at a jog, others looking confused and slowly starting to walk in the right direction. The guy next to Suho walked past him without any further acknowledgment. Suho hurried to catch up, grateful that they were the same height and he wouldn’t have to go trotting along after the man like a lost puppy. 

 

"Will you at least tell me your name?" He asked. "We're all in this together, right? We should be able to get along. I'm--" He swallowed hard around words that didn't want to come. "I'm Suho."  


The guy rolled his eyes and huffed at him. The 'yeah, obviously' was loud and clear. He frowned at Suho a moment before digging around in his pocket and shoving a card at Suho. It was a driver's license. 

 

"Kim Jongdae," he read out loud. "Oh, you're younger than me. Only by a year though." He handed the card back with his best winning smile. "It's nice to meet you!"

 

He got no answer but silence as Jongdae stashed away his license. "Not much of a talker, are you?" Suho asked, the one sided conversation finally starting to grate on his nerves. 

 

Jongdae opened his mouth and drew in a breath, presumably to tell him off, but his expression suddenly took an abrupt turn into alarm. He pointed over Suho’s shoulder, where there was already a worrying wailing noise approaching them. Suho whirled around. They'd fallen behind the group during their exchange; there was no one around to help them fight against the flock of oversized black and magenta birds that were bearing down on them. Like the frogs earlier, the sound seemed to be emitting from the creature itself. They looked less solid, now that he got a better look at them, almost like graffiti brought to life than a real animal. 

 

There was no time to examine the monsters, however. If they weren't partnered up, they were defenseless. "Run!" Suho yelled, wheeling around to sprint down the road. The faces of unfamiliar people sped by, unaware of the drama unfolding around them. At the end of the street he spotted, stymied. He'd lost track of where they were and how to get to Myeongdong from here, maybe the GPS on his phone -- but Jongdae! Suho looked around in a panic, fumbling to get his phone out of his pocket.

The noise were closer than he’d realized, hot on Jongdae’s heels as he blew past Suho, sprinting around the corner to the right as if he knew exactly where he was. Suho hurried to follow, casting anxious glances behind them. The large birds were speeding towards them, seeming almost drawn to them. Maybe it was obvious they were vulnerable. They made it another block, the wailing sound growing to a cacophony behind them. Jongdae was fast, nearly as fast Suho himself, who worked out twice a day to keep his body trim for his fans, but there was an unnatural speed to the monsters following them. They darted to the right again, Suho swerving so they could run side by side.

"Become my partner!" He shouted desperately at Jongdae. He looked torn. Behind them, the sirenlike calls were reaching a fever pitch. "Please!" Suho cried, and held out his hand. Jongdae stole a last glance at the monsters behind them, now preparing to swoop down from the skies with their claws at the ready, and took Suho’s hand. 

 

Instantly something changed, although he couldn't have said what it was. It was a bit like touching those first pins had been, but instead of losing something Suho felt instantly faster, stronger somehow. Jongdae made eye contact with him for a solid moment that lasted only the space of a breath but felt much longer - and then Suho let go of him and felt blindly for the pins on his shirt, grabbing one at random and throwing his hand up to the birds. Something about it must have worked, because suddenly a stream of water had appeared out of thin air and slammed into the creatures, knocking them out of the sky. 

 

"Let's run--" He began, but before he could say another word lightning was arcing out from where Jongdae stood beside him, lancing from the body of one bird to the next in a chain. The monsters dissolved with grating screams, their bodies turning into smoke and dispersing with the wind. Jongdae turned to him triumphantly. "Nice," Suho said, dazed. 

 

There was a sudden stinging in his hand. He glanced at it, startled, and noticed Jongdae was doing the same. The timer had disappeared completely from his palm, leaving his skin smooth and unmarked. 

 

"The hour can't be up yet," Suho said disbelievingly, staring at his hand. "We only just started."

 

Jongdae pulled out his cell phone, presumably to check the time. Suho had just begun to do the same when Jongdae thrust the screen of his phone into his face. Instead of a clock, Suho was looking at a messenger app. The text entered in read  _I heard only one pair needs to complete the mission. Someone's probably there already._

 

He typed in a few more words and held it up again for Suho.  _You ran the wrong way_ , it read now. Jongdae frowned at him. 

 

"Sorry," Suho said automatically. "I-- hold on.  You can't talk?" 

 

Jongdae cast him a long suffering look.  _Obviously,_  he mouthed. Suho wasn't much good at lip reading, but that one was pretty clear. 

 

"Oh." There was an uncomfortable pause. "So... we're free until the next mission, I guess. Should we... go to Shinsegae anyway?" 

 

Jongdae shrugged. It seemed like as good a destination as any, so they set out at a much more relaxed pace towards Myeongdong, Jongdae guiding Suho down the streets. 

"So that was your entry fee?" Suho asked, trying to make conversation. “Your voice?”

Jongdae passed him his phone. They were going to be doing a lot of this now that they were partners, Suho realized – having seemingly one-sided conversations that Jongdae would have to text replies to. _That’s not all. I also feel like I’m walking on knives with every step. But anything to meet your prince, right?_ He stared at it for a few minutes, trying to guess what his partner could be talking about, before Jongdae snatched the phone back and wrote, _Hyung, really?_

“Oh!” It clicked. “Oh, the little mermaid – that was pretty quick, good one.” 

Jongdae snorted silently. _You’re a pretty serious guy, aren’t you?_

“Not really,” Suho confessed. “Sometimes my manager gets on me for trying to make too many jokes or acting silly…”

 _Oh yeah,_ Jongdae wrote, head down as he walked and typed with an efficiency Suho had to admire. He shuffled closer to see what Jongdae was writing as he typed it, which made the whole process faster. _I did see pictures of you on the internet like this._ He left off writing to make an exaggerated horrified face, then did a little dance. Suho started laughing, feeling his face heat up. He knew exactly what pictures Jongdae was talking about, which made it all the worse.

“It’s embarrassing,” he protested weakly, as Jongdae left off his impersonation. Now that they were talking, Jongdae was a lot more easygoing than he’d appeared. Maybe they could get along alright after all.

 _That’s what you get for being a celebrity,_ Jongdae typed primly. He had lips that curved up like a cat’s when he smiled, Suho noticed.

“Is that going to be weird?” He asked, looking up to see that they were approaching the department store that had been their mission.

Jongdae shrugged. _We’re both dead,_ he wrote. _Doesn’t matter much now, right?_

“I guess not,” he agreed.

 

 

As it turned out, it mattered a little. Their first stop after reaching an area with shopping readily available was to step in to a popular active wear store so Suho could replace his expensive shoes with something that wouldn’t kill his feet if he had to run. Jongdae, who was already wearing sneakers, comfortable looking cargo shorts, and a hoodie, sat and waited while he went to look at the options.

Even though they were both technically dead, it seemed Minseok and Lu Han’s advice had been right – the clerk treated them like any other customer, in the sense that she saw and heard and accepted money from them, and also like no other customer in the store, because the second she saw Suho her eyes lit up and she started trying to get him to sign things or taking photos of him when he wasn’t looking. Jongdae seemed a little out of his element, but Suho was used to this sort of treatment. He signed exactly one item, tried on the shoes, flashed a smile at every opportunity, and got the hell out of dodge at the first opportunity.

Jongdae breathed a sigh of relief as soon as they’d exited, new sneakers secured and looking out of place on Suho’s feet next to the rest of his more formal outfit. _How do you deal with that every day?_ He wrote.

 

Suho shrugged. “You get used to it.” He was still trying to sort his own feelings out, truthfully, but he didn’t say so to Jongdae – the star treatment was an island of familiarity in the frightening ocean of this other world, the underground. At the same time, there was a freedom in being able to walk the streets of a popular area without being stopped or mobbed that he hadn’t felt in years.

They stopped to sit on a bench while Jongdae contemplated the street vendors. None of them had seemed able to see them, which must mean there was something specific about stepping into a building, like taking a few steps back into the real world.

They were both quiet for the span of a few breaths, caught up in their own thoughts. Around them, waves of people swirled and twisted, all of them in their worlds, their own lives, and none of them with eyes for Jongdae or Suho.

 _Sorry I wasn’t exactly welcoming earlier,_ Jongdae typed into his phone eventually, tilting it so Suho could read the screen. _I wasn’t having a great day to begin with, and then I died._

“It’s okay,” Suho assured him, looking up from the screen to meet Jongdae’s eyes. He did look apologetic. “I’m kind of freaking out about it still.”

 _You don’t look like you’re freaking out_ , Jongdae wrote.

Suho smiled wryly at him. “I’m an actor, remember?” It was polite of Jongdae to say so, but Suho was reasonably sure it was obvious he was feeling under pressure. His manager had told him on more than one occasion that he was ‘difficult’ and ‘got snippy’ when he was stressed, which was often. Jongdae shrugged.

“What was going wrong with your day before?” Suho asked instead. “I mean, if you don’t mind telling me.”

 _Got into a fight with my dad,_ Jongdae wrote, and made a face.

“I’m sorry,” Suho murmured. He wished he could sympathize, say anything about his own family to relate, but he couldn’t even remember if he _had_ a father.

 _It’s okay._ Jongdae paused, considering, before he began to type again. _He’s just trying to do what’s best for me. But it feels like everyone has their own opinion about what I should do with my life except for me._

Suho wracked his brain for something to say that would be encouraging but not too intrusive. “If you have a dream, you should follow it,” he offered weakly. It was a line from a drama he’d acted in last year. A familiar sense of self-loathing bubbled in his gut.

Jongdae seemed not to notice. _I want to be a good son,_ he answered simply, and put his phone away. It was clear the topic was closed.

That was fine with Suho. He got to his feet, offering a hand to Jongdae. “Should we get some food?” He asked. “I know we can’t really get hungry, but I feel like something hot.”

Jongdae nodded, allowing Suho to pull him up, and they set out.

 

 

It seemed that there was a one mission a day limit, since they’d gotten no other messages on their phones that day. That was, if what had passed could really be called a day. Time seemed to pass strangely in the underground. They’d spent some time eating and then fought some noise that had appeared on the street corner nearby. The body of one had condensed into a pin instead of dispersing, one that Jongdae had clipped to his shirt, although they hadn’t yet figured out what to do with it. Somewhere in the aftermath, Suho had passed out, or fallen asleep, or—something. His memory was fuzzy. He’d woken up back in Seoul Plaza by City Hall, Jongdae lying in the grass beside him.

“How did we…?” Suho croaked, then stopped and shook his head. Pushing himself up off the grass took a herculean effort. Beside him, Jongdae rubbed a hand over his face tiredly. Suho looked around. He could see a few people he’d spoken to from the other day, other players, standing around in the park or lying in the grass in pairs. It seemed like there wasn’t a set time for everyone to start the day, and there couldn’t be a mission yet or they would have felt the timer.

When he looked over again Jongdae was waiting with a message on his phone screen. _I was hoping it was a bad dream,_ it read.

“Me too,” Suho admitted, getting to his feet. Jongdae followed suit, stretching out his limbs with an audible pop. He was wearing a hat, but they looked like they were right around the same height. It was a nice change from most of the people he worked with, who were tall and built like the typical model.

Jongdae might not have the height for it, but he certainly had the cheekbones. Suho turned away self-consciously as Jongdae scrubbed at his face again, apparently trying to grind his eyes open.

“Oh, you survived,” said a voice from behind Suho. When he whirled around, Minseok and Lu Han were waiting. There was something different about them, but it took Suho a moment to place it. Wings! There were black, stark looking wings gently folded up against their shoulders. They looked to be made of the same stuff as the noise – a little out of place against the backdrop of the park, almost like graffiti or abstract art, but moving along impossibly with the motion of their bodies.

Lu Han noticed him staring. “Oh yeah, you couldn’t see these before, right? Perks of being a reaper.”

 

Jongdae’s phone slapped gently against his chest. Suho looked down and read, “Reaper?”

Jongdae shot him a thumbs up. Across from them, Minseok was wincing sympathetically. “That’s a tough entry fee,” he commented lightly. “But yeah, reapers like us help manage the game.”

“Not all of them are at our level,” Lu Han agreed, nodding. “You can tell who they are because they have wings like us, though. Most of them.” Minseok shot him some kind of warning look and instantly Lu Han pressed his lips together sheepishly.

“We came to give you a tip about the mission today,” Minseok continued mildly, watching as Suho and Jongdae looked up in unison.

“There hasn’t been a mission sent out yet,” Suho said hesitantly.

“Should be any minute,” Lu Han supplied.

Minseok nodded. “The boss this week is pretty punctual. He’s going easy on you at first, but don’t get used to it.”

 _The boss?_ Jongdae wrote, and held it up for Suho, but Minseok wasn’t finished.

“For the mission today, you’ll have to use your player pin. That’s the one with the skull.” Minseok pointed at Suho’s chest, where his pins were carefully arranged in a line. He’d spent a decent amount of time the previous day making sure they looked stylish. “Use it to scan people and see what they’re thinking. You can even give them an idea if you work hard at it.”

Suho and Jongdae exchanged a glance. Turning back to Minseok, he opened his mouth to ask more, but at that moment both their phones went off.

‘Find the man who’s preparing for the biggest day of his life. Don’t let him rest on his laurels. 7 hours.’

Suho winced as the timer appeared on his hand, already starting to count down.

 _Seven hours?_ Read the message Jongdae held up.

Suho had barely read it before he was asking, “Only seven hours? This guy could be anywhere!”

“Anywhere in Jung-gu,” Lu Han agreed. “You can’t leave, anyway, so he’s got to be somewhere here!”

“Jung-gu is huge,” Suho protested. “There’s hundreds of thousands of people – tourists alone—“

“You should get going, then.” Minseok looked amused. Suho scowled at him. “Hey, Lu Han,” he added casually. “Since they’ve got the mission and the hint, we should do a little harrying, right?”

“Sounds like fun,” Lu Han agreed. “Here you go!”

He swept his hand, and like smoke seeping out from underneath a door, several forms twisted up from the grass and coalesced into grey wolf-like monsters. A strange wavering electrical sound rose from them. Lu Han waved at them once and then he and Minseok stretched out their wings and were gone.

“Great,” Suho muttered under his breath, bitter. “Some help they were.”

There were enough of the creatures that they could surround the two of them, cutting Jongdae off from Suho. He focused on taking out the noise nearest to him, narrow dodging the creatures’ claws and viciously sharp teeth. He’d dispatched three before he turned to check on Jongdae and saw him swarmed with around six or seven of the noise. His left arm was bleeding, and he was throwing lightning out at the creatures desperately, trying to keep them from lunging at him but unable to avoid all of them. “Help!” he yelled when he saw Suho – but obviously it made no sound, and Suho felt a cold rush of fear – had he been yelling for help the whole time?

He threw a rush of water at the monsters and charged into the center of the pack, joining Jongdae. With two people back to back, the group of noise was challenging but not deadly. They worked in tandem to weaken and repel any attacks from the monsters. When they’d destroyed the last of them Suho let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

“You okay?” He asked as Jongdae gripped his arm, rolling up his sleeve to expose the injury. It wasn’t deep, fortunately, but it would need some bandages at the least.

Jongdae glared at him and furiously began to type. _You have to look around for me!_ The text read when he brandished it at Suho. _I was trying to get your attention! I can’t just yell!!!_

The multiple exclamation points were a little unnecessary, in Suho’s opinion, but he understood. “I’m sorry,” he said honestly. “I wasn’t thinking about it. Let’s stay close when we fight again, okay?” Jongdae allowed him to look over the wound, mopping up some of the blood with a napkin he had in his pocket.

They were quiet as they headed out into the city. First stop was a seven-eleven to get Jongdae bandages. After that, Suho had wanted to start systematically working through each section of the district. Jongdae thought they should go to business areas where someone might be thinking of applying for a job or something similar important.

They tried universities first, and then at Jongdae’s insistence hovered around several banks, using their pins on whoever stepped up to the doors. As Lu Han and Minseok had described, using the player pin and focusing on a particular person let them listen in to their thoughts. It felt a little strange and invasive, and Suho didn’t particularly enjoy doing it – but the timer ticking down on his hand lent him a sense of urgency that overrode any doubts. They were down to three hours and Suho was starting to get nervous when Jongdae threw himself against a nearby wall with a sigh. _I can’t go on,_ he wrote.

Suho shared his sentiments. They’d walked what felt like halfway across the city and had had no luck so far. “How about something to drink?” He suggested. “There’s a good coffee place back over…”

Jongdae was laughing. _There are good coffee places EVERYWHERE, hyung._

Well, that was true. If there was one resource Seoul wasn’t lacking, it was coffee. Suho laughed and ushered him along to the one he had in mind anyway. He was secretly pleased Jongdae was comfortable enough with him to speak informally with him, although if it was due to Jongdae’s own friendliness or the fact that Suho was a celebrity and half the country knew everything down to his shoe size he couldn’t be sure.

  


 

Suho tried not to watch the timer while they sat drinking coffee; something sweet for him and simple for Jongdae. He was running out of cash, which might be a problem soon – it was hard to say if his card would work since he was maybe sort-of dead. The coffee was something reliable at least, and sitting for a bit he felt refreshed, although they were no closer to figuring out what the mission could mean.

 _What would be the biggest day of your life?_ Jongdae asked, writing on a napkin on the table. His handwriting was small, a little messy. Suho watched him write, oddly charmed.

“Debuting, I guess,” he answered thoughtfully. “Or I guess if you got into a good school – but we’ve already looked there.”

 _Having a baby?_ Wrote Jongdae.

“Or getting...” Suho stared at him. “Getting married! He’s getting married, don’t you think?”

 _Maybe,_ Jongdae answered, but he looked excited.

“So maybe we should look at clothing stores? If he’s getting a suit?”

 _No one buys their suit right before their wedding,_ Jongdae scribbled quickly. _What about a jewelry store? Maybe he’s buying a ring._

He was running out of space on the napkin, but it was fine. They were both done with their coffee, and finally it seemed like they had a solid plan. “Jewelry stores,” Suho agreed. “Let’s get started.”

 

Their first few stops were fruitless, but as they worked their way back towards more shopping-heavy areas, Jongdae suddenly grabbed for his wrist.

“Look,” he mouthed, pointing across the street. Two guys about their age were standing in front of the Lotte building, looking deep in discussion. Suho looked back at Jongdae blankly.

“What…?”

Jongdae pointed to his chest and Suho took another look, disbelieving – but he was right. Clearly displayed on both of the men’s shirts were black and white skull patterned pins.

“They’re players!” He exclaimed, and Jongdae nodded, tugging him across the street.

Jongdae had incredible luck. Not only had he found help, he had found help that was already two steps ahead of them.

“I think we found the guy,” the taller one, Chanyeol, had told them as he gestured behind himself at the building. “Up on the 11th floor, where all the expensive accessory stores are.”

“We had to look at the directory!” The shorter one, who had introduced himself as Baekhyun, said with a laugh. “Turns out we’re both poor college students; neither of us had ever been in here before.”

Suho nodded along understandingly. Naturally, the first thing they’d asked was ‘are you that actor?’ and without really knowing why, he’d shaken his head and given his name as Dowoo. It was the name of a character he’d played in one of his first dramas, totally unremarkable. Jongdae had given him a measured look but had gone along with the story, thankfully. He still wasn’t sure why he’d done it, but there was something weirdly freeing about being – not himself, not truly, but someone other than the famous face he was so used to wearing.

 _How did you find him?_ Jongdae wrote, and Suho read it out for him to the pair. It was faster to let Jongdae use him as his voice, but it was clearly a little frustrating for his partner to have to wait for Suho to communicate his thoughts. He must have been a chatty guy in the real world, Suho considered.

“We ran into him walking through Myeongdong,” Chanyeol admitted. “I wanted to get something to eat.”

“We were just trying out the scanning ability,” Bakehyun picked up. They were a good partner pair – only known each other two days and already they were finishing each others’ sentences. “This guy looked really determined. He stood out right away. Sometimes people aren’t thinking of much, but he was really—“

“He had a look on his face like this,” Chanyeol agreed, making an exaggerated frowning expression. Chanyeol had large ears that stuck out from under the snapback he was wearing, and the combination of these with his long, gangly limbs made him look like an upset puppy. Suho couldn’t hold back his laughter.

“He did,” Baekhyun agreed. “Anyway, I scanned him and he was super concentrated on ‘picking out the right thing for tomorrow’, so I figured – must be our guy!”

“Should we go together?” Suho asked, waving at the building. “We still need to figure out the second part of the mission. It’ll be easier if we work together.”

Their goal was a tall, handsome man who was stalking through the upper floors of the Lotte building like he was the one on a life or death mission. He would stop periodically to examine displays in each of the major department stores.

“Does ‘don’t let him rest on his laurels’ mean… don’t let him get a discount?” Bakehyun suggested after they’d spent twenty minutes following the man around and get nowhere. He’d settled into a routine of looking around the MCM store, getting frustrated, and walking over to Bvlgari to look through the cases next to the door. Suho had no idea what he was doing or what they were supposed to be helping with. Why one man’s shopping dilemma should in any way matter to the rulers of the afterlife remained an open question.

 _Did you see there are pins in all these stores?_ Jongdae passed his phone over in a slow moment. It didn’t seem like a message for the group. Suho followed him over to look in the window of Cartier.

“Wow. Really? Even a designer store like this is carrying pins? I didn’t realize they were a fashion trend.”

 _They’re fancy pins._ Jongdae rolled his eyes. _Lapel accessories._

“So you can put a label on your lapel?” Suho joked, pleased at the opportunity. Jongdae groaned and walked away from him.

“Hey, I just thought of something!” Baekhyun called. The two rejoined their newfound partners outside the MCM store, where the man they were following had returned to looking through the products. “Maybe we’re supposed to help him pick which one of these he wants to buy from?”

“Does MCM carry jewelry? I thought they just had leather accessories.” Suho asked, confused.

The other three stared at him. “I’ve never been inside one,” Chanyeol admitted.

“Uh, well. It’s not important. I guess we just have to get him to decide… whatever it is he’s deciding, right?” Suho forced out an awkward laugh.

 _Those two reapers said something about giving people an idea,_ Jongdae wrote. He looked around the group meaningfully.

“Oh, right. With the player pin.” He hurried to explain to Baekhyun and Chanyeol. “You can apparently use this pin to push an idea into someone’s head if you’re focusing on it.”

“That’s great, but we still don’t know what he’s supposed to pick.” Chanyeol glanced at his timer. “Thirty minutes to figure it out.”

Suho bit his lip anxiously. Before he dwell too much on the time limit, Jongdae was tapping his shoulder. When he had Suho’s attention, he pointed at the logo over the store they were standing next to. Suho looked at him blankly. Chanyeol and Baekhyun seemed no sooner to interpreting whatever Jongdae was trying to say than he was. After a moment Jongdae returned to his phone, obviously frustrated.

_The logo has a wreath in it._

“It has a…” Suho turned to examine the store front again. “A wreath… oh. Oh! Don’t let him rest on his laurels!” Jongdae nodded vigorously at him.

After that, it was easy. Chanyeol, who was voted to have the most ‘presence’ (Baekhyun’s words; Suho was sure being tall had nothing to do with someone’s ability to send a telepathic message, but that was neither here nor there) went ahead to send the message along to their target. It was a tense few minutes before their timers disappeared. Suho breathed a sigh of relief as the numbers dissolved into nothing on his hand.

 _What did he buy?_ Jongdae asked when Chanyeol returned. He shrugged.

“Something small. I didn’t get a good look though.”

“Sounds like a romance story,” Suho joked. “A man deciding to buy an engagement ring or a suitcase to leave the country…”

“What are you, a drama writer?” Baekhyun cracked up. “He was probably just buying an earring for himself or something. Anyway, it doesn’t matter! We did it!”

“We should meet up again tomorrow,” Chanyeol offered. “We worked well together.”

 _Meet you in the park,_ Jongdae typed, his expression wry. _Same time and place as every other day this week._

It wasn’t clear how much they time they had before the day was ended for them, but Suho wanted to look through the stores as long as they were there.

 

 _Are you going to buy me a backpack?_ Jongdae asked as they walked through the doors of the MCM store, batting his eyelashes coquettishly.

Suho huffed out a laugh, gently smacking his shoulder. It felt like they were getting close enough to joke around a little. “They’re overpriced,” he said, keeping his voice low so the employees couldn’t hear him. “Besides, I’ve already treated you for lunch and coffee, what’s this suddenly?”

Jongdae cast him a grave look. _Stuck with a celebrity for a life or death competition and I get the only cheap one,_ he wrote, and made a show of heaving a sigh. _Why~ are you like this?_

“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with being frugal!” Suho protested good-naturedly. “You can save for an accessory you’ll use a lot, or one that’s perfect for a situation—“

“Can I help you?” He was smoothly interrupted by one of the store employees, a man who couldn’t be much older than a high schooler. He looked the part of a store employee in every other way than his baby face, though – carefully pressed suit, elegantly styled hair, cool expression. Fortunately Suho shopped at high end stores frequently. He wasn’t phased in the slightest, although Jongdae had tensed up a bit next to him.

“We’re just browsing for now,” Suho said politely. The clerk nodded.

“Please let me know if I can help you find anything,” he said. He had a slight lisp that added to the young image. As he turned to walk away, Suho’s eye caught the single pin on the button of his shirt. It was nothing recognizable like their skull-pattern player pins, of course; just an elegant white and silver design, but it reminded him of their conversation earlier.

“Actually, I just remembered something I was looking for,” Suho said quickly. The clerk turned back, his expression polite but distinctly bored. “I noticed a lot of stores are carrying pins now. Do you have any here?”

The clerk’s eyes wandered down to Suho’s own pins. For the first time in the whole interaction, his eyes flashed with interest. “That’s an interesting design,” he commented, pointing at the player pin. “Unique.” He straightened, leading them to the right side of the store. “We do carry some. They’re popular with high school and university students, as I’m sure you know.”

There was an extensive display of pins lined up in a small case at the side of the store, next to the keychains they also carried. The price tags were shocking – although, Suho reflected, given where they were, maybe they shouldn’t be. Even a small piece of decorated metal can be expensive if it’s designer.

“If you don’t mind me saying,” the clerk commented, leaning in discreetly. “That pin you’re wearing at the top is a little low quality. If you want to make an impression there are many stores here that carry nicer brands. For a celebrity, image is everything, after all.”

Suho glanced down at the pin in question self-consciously. It was one they’d gained from the noise, reformed into a fighting product. This particular pin made a small earthquake when he used it, just enough to unbalance their opponents. “You can tell the brand by looking at it?” He asked, trying to wrap his mind around how something that had been made out of a sound monster could have anything to do with fashion.

“Well, I don’t know if that’s where you bought it, but SPAO makes this design,” the clerk looked amused. “There’s a shop down the street that buys and sells pins. They do clothes and other things too, of course, but if you want to make some money from that, it wouldn’t hurt to sell it. I’m friends with one of the employees. Just say Sehun sent you.” He smiled at Suho as though letting him in on a secret. It transformed his face instantly from judgmental, bored salesperson to a delighted younger brother. Suho found himself smiling back automatically. “Here, you seem new to pin trading, so I’ll give you a freebie.” He took off the pin that was fastened to his pocket and handed it to Suho with an air of dignity. “That’s a rare one, so take care of it.”

“Are you sure?” Suho asked, even as he accepted the pin and placed it in his pocket. Sehun nodded to him.

“Happy trading,” he said mildly. “It can get addicting fast, especially if you compete with them.”

Another salesperson wandered back, straightening the display of handbags a few meters away. Sehun schooled his expression back into bored professionalism. “Please let me know if I can help you with anything further,” he said, and slipped away.

 _Let’s get out of here, I can’t afford any of this,_ Jongdae wrote, while Suho read over his shoulder. _And you’re too cheap to buy an overpriced metal chip._

“Yup,” he agreed easily. “We should check out that store he mentioned, though. If we’re going to be fighting monsters all week at least we could get something from it.”

 _Any idea what he meant by compete with the pins?_ Jongdae asked as they made their way out of the store under the watchful gaze of the security guard.

“Maybe you can enter some kind of… fashion contest? I have no idea.”

Jongdae shrugged. The two proceeded in companionable silence to the shop down the road. It was immediately obvious which store Sehun had been referring to. The front was decorated in a variety of glittery, heavy looking accessory displays that spilled out onto the sidewalk. A group of teenagers was gathered outside, comparing sunglasses and phone charms.

The inside wasn’t much better. Everything for sale was either obviously second hand, and therefore a mish mash of different styles, or it was decorated with the same expensive but gaudy style as the outside. ‘Ostentatious,’ came to mind. The young man behind the counter fit right in with the décor. Tao, as he introduced himself, was happy to buy their extra pins and talked them in to picking up a few new ones in exchange. He was so enthusiastic about his favorite brand of pin that Suho didn’t have the heart to turn him down, even though Jongdae laughed at him when he left the store with a ridiculous rhinestone studded hourglass design stuck to his shirt.

Somewhere after that, the world became fuzzy again, and he couldn’t say when he lost consciousness – just that there was a vague impression of staggering into Jongdae, feeling the both of them falling into nothingness, and then silence.

 

 

 

He woke to Jongdae shaking his shoulder and a stinging on his hand. “What’s the…” Suho slurred blearily, trying to pull himself into consciousness. Jongdae handed him his phone impatiently.

‘Take home the gold. Four hours.’

Suho groaned. Another cryptic assignment they would have to spend hours trying to figure out the meaning of. He buried his face back on the ground, unwilling to face this newest challenge.

Jongdae gave him about two minutes of wallowing before he was hauling Suho bodily to his feet. He was stronger than he looked, his arms sturdy and grounding against Suho’s shoulders. He handed his phone over as soon as Suho had stashed his own in his pocket. _Chanyeol and Baekhyun say they know what it’s talking about,_ the message read.

Suho looked around, suddenly self-conscious. Baekhyun and Chanyeol were seated close by, watching him with barely disguised glee. “Having some trouble getting up?” Chanyeol asked cheerily.

“Jongdae can just carry you the whole way, if you’re feeling too faint.” Baekhyun added, flashing a shit-eating grin.

"I'm fine," he grumbled, wriggling out of Jongdae's grip. His ears felt hot. He looked back over at Jongdae's arm as a thought suddenly struck. "Hey, what happened to your injury?"

Jongdae ran his hand over the smooth skin of his arm and shot Suho a look that clearly said 'I don't know either', giving a tiny shrug and tilting his head to the side.

"It's a new day," Baekhyun offered. "I twisted my ankle the first day but I was fine when I woke up again. Maybe they do it so you'll have a fair chance?"

 

Suho had an instinctive distrust of the phrase 'fair chance' when applied to a situation that made a game out of whether someone lived or died, but it seemed reasonable. The noise certainly weren't holding back on them, at any rate. They made their way east, stopping every so often to take out a group of the monsters, Chanyeol leading the way.  


They were headed for a university, apparently, although Suho wasn't familiar with all the schools in Seoul. He himself had never physically attended college, only taken classes online. At the time it had seemed like a good deal - the prestige of having a degree but no time wasted on a campus working for it - but now, listening to Chanyeol talk about it, he felt a little jealous. 

 

"I know there's a big tin pin slammer game held every week or so on campus," Chanyeol was saying. "But it's over on the other side from where the arts majors take most of their classes, so I don't get to watch it very often."  


_You study music?_ Jongdae wrote, and Suho dutifully read it out for him.  


Chanyeol nodded. "I worked for a couple years after high school, so I'm a little older than the average student, but yeah, music composition. I really love it. I just wish I had more time, my band has really had to slow things down lately."  


"You're lucky you get to study something you love," Baekhyun sighed. "My parents wanted me to get a business degree so badly I stopped arguing and just went for another to make them happy." He cocked his head thoughtfully. "Actually, Chanyeol, do we go to the same school?"  


"Dongguk?"  


"Yeah! I can't believe we haven't run into each other before."  


"I'm sure I've seen you before," Chanyeol said amiably. "But I don't hang around on campus much." He turned to Jongdae and Suho. "What about you, Jongdae -- Dowoo?"  


There was a hesitation around his fake name that told Suho he probably wasn't fooling either of them with his not-a-celebrity act, but it was kind of Chanyeol not to push him. Honestly, he wasn't even sure himself why he hadn't corrected them yet. There was just something to the idea of having a name and identity that was wholly his, that didn't belong to anyone else,that felt appealing now that he was left with only the public persona. Even if it was a fake identity, it was hard to let go of it.  


"I work," he said simply. "I studied business administration in the arts when I was in university, though."  


_Family business,_ Jongdae chimed in. _My brother owns a health supplement store._  


"That's lucky," Suho muttered. "You probably get all the free samples you want." Jongdae gave him a weird look. "It's important to take care of your body," Suho told him firmly.

There were only a few more groups of noise they had to destroy on their way to the front gates. Suho was starting to set aside pins that weren't useful or had an expensive brand name on them, since they would sell better at the secondhand store they'd visited the day before. It wasn't clear why the noise reformed into the same items they used to fight them, or why they took on certain appearances, but he had noticed that the style and brand of pin they became seemed to vary depending on what neighborhood they were in.

Their progress came to an abrupt halt at the gates of the university, however. A figure in a red hoodie was waiting for them, a pair of large black wings neatly folded over her shoulder blades. The hood was pulled up so that only half of her face was visible, but she looked to be in her early twenties.

"Welcome, players," said the reaper in a soft voice. "If you want to proceed from here, you'll have to complete a mission for me. Until then, the barrier I've placed here will stay up."

Now that she'd mentioned it, Suho could see something behind her, stretching across the road in front of them. A shimmering web, catching the light in places, that looked somehow sturdy despite its inexplicable construction.

"What's your mission?" He asked cautiously. The reaper smiled.

"Bring me this album," she said, pulling a folded sheet of paper out of her pocket and handing it to Chanyeol.

 _You just want a CD?_ Jongdae asked, looking incredulous.

"That's all."

 _It's not all,_ Jongdae wrote, as they set off to a find a record store.

 

 

He was right, of course. The first three stores they went to had never heard of the group. It wasn't until they'd tried a dance studio that happened to carry some CDs that they had any luck.

"I'll have to ask my manager," said the sleepy looking front desk employee doubtfully. He brushed his hair out of his eyes and went wandering upstairs, leaving them to flip through displays of popular bands. Jongdae had gravitated to a section near the back. Suho trailed after him, hearing Baekhyun and Chanyeol arguing over rap groups behind him.

"Found your favorite section?" He asked, watching Jongdae pick up an album from a towering stack.

 _I really like this group,_ Jongdae wrote on his phone, tucking the CD case under his arm to type freely. _I used to sing their hits a lot at noraebang, or just when I was busy with something at home._

"I didn't know you liked music so much. Do you sing a lot?" Suho flipped idly through the group Jongdae had indicated. It looked like a ballad heavy group, the album covers soft and muted. Jongdae nodded.

 _I think I can improve, but I'm not bad,_ he wrote. He had such an expressive face, Suho thought. It was lucky he did, or trying to guess what he was thinking from just the text would have been impossible. He was biting his lip thoughtfully, glancing up at Suho as though to judge how much to say. _My mom wanted me to become a singer,_ he wrote finally. _Or an idol maybe. Use it somehow._

"So that's why it was your entry fee?" Suho asked, curious. "Because singing is the important thing to you?"

Jongdae hesitated. _I don't know,_ he typed slowly, his fingers lingering over the keys. _I didn't think it was. I do love singing, but._ He started typing a few times, deleting each of the attempts and starting again, before finally he settled on, _I don't know what I want yet. My brother wants me to keep working with him, and my dad wants me to go into something more serious, business or science. I guess I've just been trying to figure it out for myself._

Suho opened his mouth to say something - some lame words of encouragement, maybe, or advice he himself couldn't have followed - but behind him someone cleared his throat. They turned to see a man dressed all in black, a pair of complicated looking headphones draped around his neck and his arms full of albums.

"Zhang Yixing, I'm the owner of this store," he introduced himself. He had a smile that lit up his face and made his eyes curve into crescents. There was something about him Suho liked immediately. "Jongin said you were looking for a special item?"

Fortunately, they did have the album. Yixing included a free pin with the sale, giving Suho a wink as he added it to the bag. “Thank you for your patronage,” he said pointedly. The pin itself was an elegant black and white scorpion design. Jongdae claimed it as soon as they’d left the store, sticking it proudly to his hoodie.

The reaper looked delighted when they returned with her album. From there, it was only a matter of following Jongdae to the competition site. He hadn’t explained what tin pin slammer was supposed to be, but as they approached it was abundantly obvious. People were gathered around a circular table, pins eagerly in hand. Of course there would be a pin game too. Suho sighed.

That wasn’t the only revelation waiting for them, however. There was an announcement as the group approached. “Last chance to sign up to face off against the reigning champion, Kris!”

 _You have to be kidding me,_ Jongdae typed so fast the words ran together.

It was the man they’d spent the day before following around. He was poised in front of a table of his own, a set of pins spread out in front of him and a large gold pin fastened to his shirt.

“Take home the gold,” Suho groaned under his breath. In the next second he’d squared his shoulders and stepped forward. If they needed to play some pin game to complete the mission, then that was all there was to it. He’d just have to win.

“I’ll challenge him!”

“Are you sure—“ Baekhyun started to say, but it was too late. Suho found himself facing Kris over the table of pins, trying to guess what the hell he was supposed to be doing with him.

It took exactly two minutes for Kris to knock all of Suho’s pins out of the ring. He had a trick of spinning them that threw the sad, uneven spinning of Suho’s pins off, sending them crashing to the edge of the table with minimal effort. Before he knew it he was staring at his empty hands, his pins scattered around the edges of the arena. Kris adjusted his sunglasses, preening. “You just need a little more practice,” he advised Suho, not unkindly. “Keep at it.”

“I’m sorry,” Suho said miserably when he’d collected his pins and his pride and limped off with the both of them. “I didn’t think there would be that much of a trick to it. That might have been our last chance to win.”

“The timer’s still going,” Chanyeol said, giving him a comforting pat that nearly knocked Suho off his feet. “Maybe the mission wasn’t about this after all.”

Jongdae was staring off into the distance, vaguely following Kris as he swept his collection of pins back up. As Suho watched, his expression turned calculating. “Jongdae…?” he asked, even as Jongdae set out suddenly, walking confidently up to Kris and pulling out his phone.

It was too far to hear what they might be saying. As Suho watched, Jongdae rubbed the back of his neck, showing Kris a message on his phone screen. He kept glancing surreptitiously up at Kris through his lashes. Kris seemed charmed, puffing out his chest proudly and gesturing to his pins. Jongdae pointed to a few of his own, Kris leaning in to get a better look. Suho’s mouth dropped open as after a brief exchange, Kris unpinned his gold champion pin and passed it to Jongdae, who handed him the scorpion pin they’d gotten in the record store.

The timer had disappeared from their hands by the time Jongdae came back, a self-satisfied smile gracing his face. “How?” Suho demanded. “How did you do that?”

“By flirting, obviously,” laughed Baekhyun. Jongdae typed rapidly while Suho read over his shoulder.

 _He has a scorpion tattoo and thought it looked cooler than the gold one,_ he wrote. _You’re welcome._ He flashed a grin at them. Suho shook his head disbelievingly as he followed the group back towards the center of the city. Jongdae was really something else.

 

 

 

 

The feeling of soft grass under his face told Suho they were on to the fourth step of the week-long journey. As before, he woke beside Jongdae in the park by City Hall, feeling like he’d been hit by a truck. It wasn’t so far off from the truth, really.

There still seemed to be plenty of players still involved in the game, to Suho’s relief. Unlike previous days, he’d no sooner sat up and taken stock of himself than the text message with the day’s mission had arrived.

‘Clear Hanok village of noise.’ It read. ‘No time limit.’

“No time limit,” Suho read aloud, puzzled. “That’s the first time it’s said that. Does that mean we have all day? Twenty four hours?”

Jongdae shrugged, sitting companionably beside him. He jerked his thumb at the road in a silent question.

“Yeah, I’m ready. Got all your pins in order?”

Jongdae patted his shirt with its arrangement of pins, and when he was satisfied they were set, the two of them headed out. There were a number of other players headed in the same direction. Something about the atmosphere felt different from the previous days, though. Suho couldn’t put his finger on it, but there was a tension he hadn’t felt before as they made their way down the side roads to the center of the district. There were a number of reapers waiting with barriers, what felt like every few blocks. Their mission was always the same: clear out the noise around the barrier before you can pass through. By the fifth, Suho was beginning to feel tired. Jongdae looked as out of breath as he was.

“What’s going on?” he asked quietly when they stopped for a rest. “They’re not holding back today, huh?”

Jongdae nodded, his expression troubled. _I have a bad feeling._

“Me too,” Suho murmured, watching the line at the end of the text blinking, as though waiting for more an answer neither of them had ready.

Chanyeol and Baekhyun caught up to them near the entrance to the site, as they finished with a final barrier. They looked similarly tired. There was a rip in the sleeve of Baekhyun’s sweater, presumably from the claws of one of the larger noise. They’d run into a few recently that looked like grizzly bears, and one that could have been a porcupine.

“I’m glad we found you,” Chanyeol panted as they made their way into the historical area. “It’s been really rough today. Better to fight together.”

Chanyeol was right, of course. The going was significantly easier with four people than with two. They set to clearing out noise that appeared within the low, winding walls of the compound as a group, covering each other’s backs and trying to keep close together.

 

Most of the creatures took forms they had seen before - noise that looked like frogs, birds, bears, crabs - but there were a few unfamiliar kinds that appeared. A rhinoceros shaped noise that emitted a terrible grinding sound nearly gored Jongdae with its horn. Chanyeol lit a bunch of several bat-like noise on fire and let Baekhyun finish them off as they flapped around in confusion. It was slow going, but Suho’s methodical nature came in handy for keeping track of where they'd already been.  


They ran into other players from time to time, mostly single pairs that looked exhausted. Hanok village wasn't that large; keeping track of which areas they had cleared and which had been combed over by other players yielded only a few stray noise. Dispatching them took much longer than it should have. Sweat was running down Suho’s back, sticking his hair uncomfortably to his face. Somehow walking around in the underground didn't seem to tire him out nearly as quickly as it would have in the real world, but using his pins to fight the noise was incredibly draining. If there were much more he felt like he might collapse. 

 

It was obvious his friends felt the same way. Jongdae kept pressing his hand to his side and wincing - he wasn't bleeding through his shirt, so Suho assumed it wasn't urgent - and Chanyeol was limping from where one of the bear shaped noise had taken a chunk out of his calf. Baekhyun's knees were trembling ever so slightly with the effort of holding himself up.   


"We need a break," Suho said firmly, leading them to the main entrance of the village. They sat at one of the benches in front of the performance area, looking out over the lake. He wished desperately that there was water they could get a hold of. None of the vendors stalls were open, and he doubted that they would have been able to see them in any case.

 

"I've never been here before," said Baekhyun as they all settled themselves gingerly on the wooden slats. "It's kind of stupid, isn't it? I mean, it's right here. I even grew up just one city over, but I've still never come and done all the tourist things." 

 

"I came once, when I was a kid," Suho said, frowning thoughtfully. "It's not really how I remembered it. I guess I always just thought I'd go see things when I had more time."

 

"Same here," Baekhyun said, tilting his head back to look up at the sky. "Shows us, I guess." He laughed, but it sounded forced.  


"We still have our timers," commented Chanyeol after they'd had a chance to sit and rest their legs for a bit. "So there must still be noise here."  


_By the main area there,_ Jongdae wrote. _I have a weird feeling about it. You can tell, right?_  


"I have a weird feeling about it too," Suho admitted. The building centered the end of the main thoroughfare they were sitting in, situated behind the performance area, kep drawing his eye to it, like a gravitational field. "It feels... heavy?"  


"There might be a strong one there," Baekhyun said quietly. "The last one, maybe."  


"I think you're right." Suho looked over his companions, assessing. "Do you feel ready to check it out?" He got three somewhat reluctant nods.  


As they approached, the feeling of discomfort only grew. Suho became aware of a low growling sound that hung in the air, barely audible but pressing in against his eardrums. It was like a physical pressure. Suho’s hand hovered over his pins, anxiety crawling in a slow roll up his spine. He heard the change before he saw it, a change in pitch that instantly had him gripping his favorite pin and throwing up his hands defensively. It almost wasn't fast enough. Orange smoke appeared from the performance ground and coalesced into an enormous form, some kind of animal mid-bound. He'd thrown a burst of water at it before he'd even realized he was doing it, jumping out of the way. "Watch out!" Chanyeol was shouting somewhere to his left. The creature seemed stunned by the attack, swinging its claws out wildly.  


Now that he had some space on it, Suho could see it was some kind of lion, its mane stylized and fantastical, as though painted with wild strokes from a brush. It spun around the creature's neck like cartoon sun rays. The noise's claws were less otherworldly; they were as long as knives, extending from a huge paw that it batted around as easily as house cat. Suho was grateful that Jongdae was quick on his feet. He focused on hitting the creature with streams of water while Jongdae distracted it, dodging back and forth across the performance area, tossing bolts of lightning at the monster's claws whenever he had the chance. From behind the noise, Suho could see Baekhyun's light-based pin aimed at the back of the lion's head and Chanyeol's flames licking up its legs.  


They were fighting hard, but even four against one it was a tough match. The noise was more powerful than any Suho had seen before, its blows strong enough to knock them off their feet with one hit, and they were all exhausted. Jongdae tapped his wrist when Suho caught his eye across the courtyard. He got the message. 'We have to finish this fast.'  


They kept at it, their system allowing three of them to hit the creature hard while it was busy with the most interesting prey. The noise seemed to be weakening, which was maybe why when Chanyeol got a little too close it turned and snapped defensively at him instead of pursuing Jongdae. Chanyeol yelled as the lion sank its teeth into the meat of his calf, throwing his arms up to struggle helplessly with the monster. There was a sickening crunch of bone snapping, audible even over Chanyeol's cries. Baekhyun shot a beam of light at the noise's eyes, and it finally flinched back, releasing Chanyeol. Baekhyun hurried to drag him away. His leg was bleeding badly, staining the ground around them while Chanyeol grasped at his knee, trying to stem the flow.  


Suho leapt forward, ready to help, but a palm closed hard around his arm and he was jerked back. It was Jongdae, his face flushed and eyes wide. He gestured to his pins frantically, but Suho couldn't understand what he was trying to say. "Do you need one?" he asked hurriedly, hearing the lion shaking off its pain behind them. "I can--"  


Jongdae was shaking his head. Apparently too impatient to try and explain before they were attacked, he grabbed Suho's hand and shoved it onto the collection of pins he had attached to his shirt. The gold pin was pressed up hard against the heel of his hand. Jongdae opened his mouth to say something, but no words left him. He was staring over Suho's shoulder, not letting go of his hand. Suho turned to see the noise bounding toward them, claws outstretched. They were done for. He cried out uselessly, his voice lost in the roar of the creature's constant sounds. As the shout left his throat, though, the pin activated. The ground shook wildly beneath the noise, tripping up its paws. It fell over heavily onto its side, thrashing as it tried to get its legs back under it. The group wasted no time in attacking it, its vulnerable stomach exposed to the worst of their blows. The creature's form held together for a moment more, shaking, before it burst into nothingness with a deafening growl. A pin dropped down where it had been, lying innocuously on the dirt.  


There was silence for a moment, broken only by Chanyeol's gasps of pain. He was curled over his leg, grabbing desperately at where his wounds were still bleeding rapidly, pieces of bone visible through the teeth marks. Baekhyun struggled out of the jacket he was wearing and pressed it onto Chanyeol's leg, pushing it in hard against the wounds even as Chanyeol flinched away from him. "This is going to help with the bleeding, stay still," he insisted.  


Suho glanced at his palm, noting that the timer was gone. "That was it!" he announced. "Hang in there, Chanyeol, it'll be gone when you wake up."  


"Nicely done!" called a voice from above. Lu Han and Minseok were perched on the roof of a nearby building, watching them. Lu Han's legs dangled casually off the edge of the roof, his wings relaxed against his back, while Minseok stood easily behind him, wings tucked away trimly. His were a little smaller, Suho noticed.  


"Can you end the day?" Suho called up to them. "We completed the mission, but our friend is hurt--"  


Lu Han frowned thoughtfully, resting his chin on his hand. "Minseok, what do you think? Are they done?" He asked, without turning around. Minseok shook his head and Lu Han smiled, as though he knew what had happened even without looking.  


"Remember what I told you the first day?" Minseok called to Suho, smiling.  


He had an instant to think - to remember exactly what Minseok had said to him - but by the time the realization hit it was too late. "Watch out!" Suho yelled, but even as the words were leaving his mouth Lu Han had raised his hand and in a single smooth motion summoned two rings of noise that burst into being around each set of players, separating Suho and Jongdae from Baekhyun and Chanyeol.  


"We have to help them," he said urgently, and beside him Jongdae nodded firmly, already settling into place at Suho's back. They threw themselves into the battle. These noise were deer shaped, their antlers painted in wild blue and purple designs. It was hard to avoid them when they closed into such a small space, but they managed by having Jongdae stun the group with his electric pin while Suho picked off the noise one by one. He felt like he was rapidly nearing the limit of how much more he could give. The nonstop battles of the day, and especially the tense fight with the large noise they'd just defeated that he assumed had been the last thing they'd have to defeat, had taken their toll. He barely had the strength to stand, but desperate fear fueled him, pushing his limbs to go farther. When they'd finished with the last of their noise, Suho and Jongdae burst forward, rushing to where Baekhyun and Chanyeol were struggling for their lives against another group.  


His heart dropped into his stomach as he and Jongdae attacked the noise at the edge of the circle. As though sensing weakness, the monsters were merciless in their attacks. Baekhyun was crouched protectively in front Chanyeol, who was trying to attack the monsters as best as he could from his position. It didn't look as though he could stand. Suho hurled attacks against the noise more rapidly, trying to break through, but everything was weakening. Instead of a powerful burst of water, a thin stream was the most he could manage. Jongdae, beside him, was struggling to give off more than a weak bolt or two of electricity every few seconds. The numbers were dwindling, but Suho was seriously beginning to wonder if they would have the energy to destroy all of them.  


He saw the exact moment it happened. Baekhyun had been fending off a noise that was attacking Chanyeol behind him, his light pin only weakly bursting into life. When he turned back there was already a noise waiting for him, its horns lowered. Baekhyun tried to use his pin, but nothing happened - and in that moment the noise moved, charging forward and spearing its horns into Baekhyun's chest. There was a terrible moment where time seemed to freeze, and then Baekhyun's body just vanished, fading out of existence as though he had never been at all. "No!" Suho yelled, even as "BAEKHYUN!" tore out of Chanyeol.  


The shock fueled something inside Suho. He slammed through three noise in a rush, destroying them with the last of his strength in a hurry to get to Chanyeol. It turned out he didn't need to put in the effort. The remaining noise vanished into smoke around them. Suho turned wildly to see Lu Han and Minseok still watching them dispassionately.

  


"Did you leave them for me?" Minseok asked, glancing down at his companion.  


Lu Han gestured grandly. "All yours."  


Minseok grinned, showing his gums. "Thanks, Lu-ge, but I think you need the points more than me. Besides, one of them's on his way out already. He's only got, what? Five more seconds to find a new partner?"  


At that, Chanyeol staggered to his feet. "You killed him!" he cried desperately, fumbling for his pins even as his leg threatened to crumple under him. "You--"  


Jongdae rushed forward to restrain Chanyeol, but he was too slow. Chanyeol threw a burst of fire at the reapers, pouring the last of his strength into the attack.  


The two seemed unimpressed. "That's a shame," Lu Han said idly. Minseok raised his hand, and faster than Suho could follow, he'd summoned a deadly sharp icicle that shot forward through Chanyeol's stomach. He choked for a second, his body shaking, and then he too had faded out of existence.  


"Well, looks like we're even again," said Lu Han, as though he were talking about the score of a football match instead of someone's life. The injustice of it spurred movement back into Suho's body. He stumbled forward, heedless of Jongdae's hand on his shoulder steadying him.  


"How could you just--" he burst out, unable to sort his thoughts out. Everything seemed surreal. Minseok looked down at them, almost surprised, as though he had forgotten they were still there.  


"Sad story," he remarked, his tone casual. "They died together in an electrical fire. Best friends whose entry fees were their memories of each other." Suho gaped at him.  


"Don't look so heartbroken," said Lu Han, getting to his feet. "This is our job. If we didn't do it, we'd end up like them."  


"Not everyone can win a game," Minseok agreed, smoothing down his shirt. "This week's game master likes to let the players ease into it slowly, but there comes a point where you have to thin the numbers."He turned to Lu Han and jerked his head at Suho and Jongdae. "Speaking of, you want these two?"  


"Sure," said Lu Han, smiling. Suho tensed, but before any of them could make another move there was the distinctive chime of a cell phone notification. He looked at Jongdae in confusion, but his partner shook his head.  


"Hold on," said Minseok. He dug through his pocket and flipped open his phone, frowning as he read. "Change of plans. You two get another day." He handed the phone to Lu Han to read and shrugged at Suho and Jongdae. "Don't waste it." Lu Han handed the phone back, looking disappointed, and the two were gone, as suddenly as they'd come.  


It took a minute of staring after them to accept that the reapers had left. Suho realized his legs were shaking and let himself sink onto the ground, heedless of the dirt getting on his dress slacks. Jongdae sat down next to him with a thump.  


They sat in silence for a long time. For once, Suho could think of nothing to say. Jongdae's head was resting heavily on his shoulder. Around them, the city was quiet, muffled by the ancient walls of the historical village. Jongdae offered nothing beyond the solid weight of his body against Suho's. Maybe it was just that, for both of them, there was nothing more to say.  


 

  


 

 

 

Seoul plaza was eerily quiet when they woke up next. _Are we the only ones left?_ Jongdae wrote. It wasn’t a question Suho wanted an answer to. He said nothing, silently dusting himself off and getting his things together, preparing for whatever they might have to face today. All of their injuries were gone, at least, vanished in whatever supernatural force kept them alive and locked into an alternate version of reality while they fought against death.

The both of them were subdued, the scene from the day before weighing heavily on their minds. Even the mission came later than it had before; they'd started to walk around, looking for other players and fighting a few noise before the day's text arrived. 'Reach Cheonggyecheon. Four hours.'

 

"Four hours just to get to the stream?" Suho commented, doubtful. "Either this guy feels bad for us or we're going to be hitting a barrier every other step."

 

 _Sounds fun,_ Jongdae wrote, which Suho assumed was meant to be sarcastic. He mostly just looked tired. 

 

They picked their way along the roads, trying to head north. Every other block held a support reaper with a barrier he or she refused to take down. It was like a labyrinth, invisible but built up by the streets of the city. They had to double back more than once, retracing their steps just to be able to try and approach the stream again, all the while fighting battles intermittently. It was more mentally than physically exhausting, and it didn't help that both of them were subdued after the player purge. They spoke mostly to discuss where to go, long silences filling up the space from barrier to barrier. 

 

The last reaper standing between them and the goal - Suho could  _see_ the park - had a mission in mind, however. 

 

"If you want to get past me, I want to see a role reversal first," he said, flashing a smile that might as easily have been mischievous as malicious. "I want the superstar to look like a normal guy and the normal guy to look like a superstar. Pick whatever brands you want, but stick to them."

 

Suho and Jongdae traded a look. 'Is this guy for real?' said Jongdae's eyebrows. 'Let's just get it over with,' said the corner of Suho’s mouth. 

 

They made their way back to the shops lining Myeongdong, both a little put off by the mission. Suho was trying to memorize the route they were taking and mostly just wishing his memory was good enough to actually do so. Jongdae looked deep in thought. 

 

"Why don't we do the casual shopping first?" Suho suggested. "It'll probably go faster."

 

 _Sounds good,_ Jongdae wrote. He paused, looking suddenly uncertain, then slowly started to type again. _I still can't believe we're in the middle of a life or death game held in an alternate dimension and our assignment is to buy some clothes._ He shook his head. 

 

"I know, I don't really get it either," Suho agreed, patting Jongdae's shoulder in a way he hoped was comforting. "Maybe it's supposed to be a lesson about, um. The unimportance of material goods?"

 

 _Thanks, Father,_ Jongdae wrote, snorting.

 

"Okay, I have no idea," Suho laughed. It  _was_ a little ridiculous. 

 

The atmosphere seemed to have lightened a little, despite the circumstances, for which Suho was grateful. He had a tendency to mope sometimes, get stuck inside his own head. It might have been the situation as much as Jongdae himself, but so far his partner had kept him moving and focused on whatever was coming next. They wound their way through the streets, Jongdae leading the way. He occasionally stopped to peer at store fronts with a critical eye.

 

"It doesn't need to be anything fancy," Suho remarked after the third time this happened. "Actually, that's kind of the point."

 

 _I'm looking for somewhere that has men's clothes on sale,_ Jongdae responded, as though this should have been obvious. _You're only going to wear them once, so there's no point breaking the bank._

 

"I might wear them more than once," Suho protested. "Your style looks... comfortable. Maybe I'll wear it a lot."

 

Jongdae raised an eyebrow.

 

"You never know!" Suho insisted, but he was smiling. "At home, maybe, when no one is going to be asking me what designer I'm wearing."

 

Eventually Jongdae led him into a SPAO. Suho grabbed a cap off a rack right inside the door and pulled it low over his face. The chances of being mobbed by fans in a store like this was significantly higher than in an exclusive boutique. He followed along patiently while Jongdae deliberated over the sales rack, handing him an armful of things to try on. His choices, as Suho had predicted, were simple but classic, and looked like things he'd be comfortable in. It was the sort of thing he might have picked out himself, before he'd gotten used to the celebrity lifestyle.

 

Jongdae had him come of the changing room with each item, assessing with a degree of solemnity that Suho couldn't help laughing at. _Leave the pokemon sweater, it looks silly,_ he told Suho, and then, when Suho sighed, _Do you want it that badly?_

 

"No, I'm sad they were out of bulbasaur," Suho said dejectedly, pulling off the black sweater embroidered with a picture of squirtle. Jongdae gave him a look of fond exasperation.

 

Eventually Jongdae settled on a graphic t-shirt, khaki cargo shorts, and a jacket for him. Suho tossed the hat and a pair of cheap sunglasses onto the pile too, figuring it couldn't hurt to try and keep his face more covered while they were passing into the real ground, however briefly. The total was under ₩60,000. He nodded to Jongdae, impressed. "Not bad for a whole outfit."

 

 _I expect your fanciest brand in return,_ Jongdae wrote, and looked flatly at Suho. He had no idea how Jongdae was able to keep a straight face sometimes.

 

"Deal."

 

The shop he took Jongdae to was a small, well-lit store off the main streets that carried work from designers he'd modeled for in the past. It was empty except for them, and the lone employee hovered as he flipped through the racks, picking out things in his own size and eyeing Jongdae's figure up critically. They looked about the same height, although Jongdae was a little more muscular, maybe - and how was that even fair, he had three personal trainers and a nutritionist.

 

When he'd picked out an outfit he liked, with sizing help from the employee, who could tell in a single look what would fit Jongdae much better than Suho could, he thrust the items into Jongdae's arms and sent him off to the changing room. There was only one, given the size of the store. Jongdae fumbled with the items, shifting them to one hand so he could clumsily type on his phone. _You should get chanfged while were here you have to wear tjhigns for the barier anyway,_ Suho read.

 

"I can just go after you," he said slowly, but Jongdae shrugged.

 

_Takes longer._

 

He got another message when Jongdae passed his phone out the curtain while he was buttoning up the shirt Suho had picked out.  _Shy for a guy who did a photoshoot in just a pair of ripped up jeans,_ it read. He read it in a teasing tone, which only made it worse.

 

"No, you saw that one?" He groaned. His manager had insisted it was a good idea, but the whole photoshoot had been terribly embarrassing. He didn't mind showing off his body a little - he'd worked hard for it, after all - but there was a limit to what he could really be comfortable with. "I can't believe you-- oh."

 

He cut himself off abruptly as Jongdae emerged from the changing room, adjusting the leather jacket Suho had picked. He was grateful the store employee had helped; it fit perfectly. Underneath Jongdae was wearing a white button up, black jeans, and matching black sneakers. It was simple, but it fit him in all the right ways. The tight pants had definitely been the way to go. "You look good!" He said quickly, and zoomed into the changing room before Jongdae could respond. Well. He was still holding Jongdae's phone, actually, so there would have been little response anyway. Suho changed quickly, feeling sheepish. It wasn't weird to find a guy attractive when he was wearing something nice, he told himself firmly. Friendly appreciation.

 

Maybe the tight pants hadn't been the way to go after all. Friendly appreciation probably didn't extend to staring at another guy's ass while he walked ahead of you. Suho shook himself out of it enough to hand Jongdae his phone back and pay for the outfit, ignoring Jongdae's shocked expression at the price tags. Nearly ₩800,000 wasn't so bad; he'd spent as much on a single meal in the past.

 

 _What happened to being stingy?_ Jongdae demanded while they made their way back towards the barrier. _First you won't buy me a backpack, then a ₩400,000 leather jacket is fine?_

 

"You can't plan your outfit around an accessory like a backpack," Suho informed him primly. "There are other considerations, like--"

 

_Like being able to carry our old clothes? If only we had some kind of bag..._

 

"Like protection from the noise," Suho continued as though he hadn't read the message. "A leather jacket is durable as well as fashionable."

 

They bickered the rest of the way to the stream. They'd been lucky on the timing; there was still thirty minutes left on the mission and the reaper that had been guarding the final barrier let them through after gleefully snapping a photo of them. The numbers fell away from their palms as they reached the banks of the stream, Cheonggyecheon sweeping out below them. Suho picked his way down the path from the road, leading them down to where steps were carved into the stone at the edge of the water. He settled down comfortably, feeling Jongdae sit next to him, and let his feet dangle above the surface of the water. They were quiet for a few minutes, enjoying the feeling of the afternoon air and the sound of the water coursing along. People strolled along around them, families with children or couples with linked arms. It was a strange feeling, of being a part of all the life around them but still somehow separate. Suho had gotten used to the latter in the time he'd been a celebrity, but he hadn't realized how much he missed the former until that moment.

 

"I like coming to the river like this to think," he said eventually, looking out over the water. The sun was starting to lower, the shadows from the railing overhead casting long lines onto the surface.

 

 _This isn't much of a river,_ Jongdae wrote, Suho reading along as he typed. _But it's nice. Peaceful._

 

"That's true," he admitted. "If you've never sat by the river - I mean, the real river - it's really relaxing. I go there when I need to clear my head."

 

 _I thought celebrities only went there to make out in their cars,_ Jongdae wrote, his shoulder bumping Suho's teasingly.

 

"They aren't mutually exclusive, right?" He joked back, feeling hot. Jongdae pulled back to look at him in surprise and he laughed outright. "Hey, it's my car, right? I can do whatever I want with it."

 

 _You're too much,_ Jongdae wrote, settling back. His shoulder stayed resting against Suho's this time, the contact just barely there. They passed a few minutes watching the water sliding past, gently lapping at the sides of the rock lining it. _You should show me,_ Jongdae wrote finally, holding up the phone without looking at Suho.

 

"Show you?" He repeated, trying to follow.

 

_The river. I've got a lot to think about, too._

 

"I'd like that," Suho said quietly, and feeling daring, he let his weight rest more solidly against Jongdae. Jongdae met him halfway, and they sat watching the stream flow by until the day fell into the next.

 

 

 

 

  


The routine had gotten a little stale by now, Suho thought to himself at the start of day six. Wake up in the park, get the mission, start the timer. He had no idea of there was anyone else still playing or if they were alone, trying to complete missions without anyone at all standing by to lend a hand. At least they were together, Jongdae never straying far from Suho's side even when they weren't battling. He could hardly believe they'd had such a hard time on the first day. It was impossible to imagine facing everything he had so far during the game without Jongdae. It was just too much for one person. 

  


The mission of the day was 'end the fashion feud', helpfully accompanied by a five hour time limit. Jongdae led the way out of the plaza, neither of them really sure where to start. It wasn't immediately apparent that even was a fashion feud of any kind.   


They decided to head back to the secondhand ship they'd bought pins at before to see what the manager knew. Suho had done most of the talking the first time around, so when Jongdae wrote, _Do you know what's new with the fashion scene here?_ on a piece of paper at the desk Tao only stared for a moment. Then he was rapidly signing something and looking expectantly at Jongdae. Suho opened his mouth to explain, but then thought better of it. He'd been doing a lot of talking for Jongdae over the course of this week. Jongdae could handle himself.

  
They got there eventually through a sheet a paper, Tao squinting at Jongdae's hurried handwriting. "I keep on track of everything that happens around here," he told them seriously, looking over a pair of oversized sunglasses that were totally unecessary inside the shop. "I'm trying to promote my own brand of custom apparel." He gestured at the wall, where a range of dramatic black and white clothing was displayed. "I'm selling pins to promote it, but now every fashion line around here is selling pins too... It's hard to make sales. The stores nearest to me have been trying to push their pins more aggressively since I started selling mine, and they're more established." He turned hopeful eyes on Suho. "Would you help? You're famous, maybe people will want the pins if you give them out."  


Jongdae and Suho exchanged a look. It seemed like their instincts were right after all. "Sure," said Suho, and immediately Tao pulled out a handful of pins, as though he had just been waiting for the moment to unveil them. He passed them over eagerly, watching as Suho and Jongdae examined them. They were no more to Suho's taste than the first pin Tao had given him, but he looked so excited that it was impossible to seem anythign other than thrilled. He let Tao chat to him for a few more minutes about his sources of inspiration before a thump on the glass of the store window interrupted them. Suho turned, noticing that Jongdae was no longer beside him, and saw his partner standing outside with one of Tao's pins clipped to his shirt already, a pad of paper with _LET'S GO_ written on it held up to the glass.  


_How are we even going to give out these pins?_ Jongdae asked when Suho had excused himself from the shop and rejoined him outside. _Most people can't even see us._  


"I haven't figured that one out yet," Suho admitted. "Oh! Noise!"  


It turned out, to their chagrin, that merely fighting noise in an area while wearing Tao's pins served to get people interested in them, even if they couldn't see the products or the monsters themselves.  


_How does any of this work?_ Jongdae asked, somewhat rhetorically, after they'd cleared a street of noise and watched a pair of teenage girls turn the corner wearing Tao's pins on their bags. _Alternate dimension reality convergence? Psychic messages?_  


"No idea," Suho admitted. "But now I'm questioning every purchasing decision I've ever made. Maybe I only like certain clothes because some ghosts are running around wearing that brand." They traded disturbed looks.  


When they checked back in with Tao, he seemed ecstatic. "I just had five people in a row come in asking about the pins! I even made a sale." He beamed at them, the puffy bags under his eyes scrunched up charmingly. "Since you've been having so much luck... maybe you could try promoting over in Euljiro-dong too?"  


The mission dragged on as they continued to fight using Tao's pins. Finally Jongdae insisted they get something to eat to break up the work. _Tomorrow's the last day. If we die for real I want to go out after I've had something delicious._  
  


They settled on a bench with ice cream from a shop nearby. Jongdae offered his to Suho to try, looking totally unbothered by how couple-y the gesture was. Although if they could save each other lives, Suho reasoned, licking each other's ice cream really wasn't a huge deal. At least, that was what he thought until Jongdae waggled his eyebrows as he licked at the side of the cone and Suho had to look away, not sure if Jongdae was flirting with him or messing with him.

"Advantages of being dead," he said thoughtfully when they were finishing up, still trying to get his heart to slow down. "I don't have to worry about all the blackheads that would normally give me. My manager would never have let me eat that much dessert normally." He laughed.  


They sat quietly for a bit while Suho's thoughts wandered. Tomorrow was the last day, their last shot to make it back to the lives they'd left behind.

"There were some times this week when I was wondering if it worth it to go back, you know," he said conversationally, examining the remnants of his cone.

 _To life?_ Jongdae wrote. He glanced at Suho out of the corner of his eye, looking surprised. _Why wouldn't you want the life you had?_

 

Suho hummed thoughtfully, trying to put into words. "I guess I got so caught up with being what other people thought I should be, I forgot to value the real me," he said finally.

 

Jongdae nodded slowly beside him.  _I'm afraid of that,_ he typed, hovering over the keyboard as though not totally certain himself what he wanted to express.  _That maybe I have to choose between making other people happy and making myself happy. I don't think I could put my own wishes above the people around me. It's hard even to talk about what I want myself without feeling guilty for it._

 

"Like you don't have a voice?" It made so much sense suddenly. He didn't know why that hadn't clicked before.

 

Apparently it hadn't clicked for Jongdae either, because he stared at Suho, looking stunned. _Yeah,_ he wrote finally, and then looked at the screen of his phone as though it held more revelations.  _If we get out of this,_ he wrote a few lines, then erased them and started again. _I want to be more direct about what I want,_ he wrote, his jaw setting firmly. _I'm going to tell my family I'm choosing my own career._

"What is it that you really want to do?" Suho asked, enjoying the sight of Jongdae's eyes filling with new determination.

 _I think I want to teach, actually._ Jongdae looked up at him as though waiting for some kind of reaction. Suho gripped his shoulder in what he hoped was an encouraging gesture.

“If that’s what you want, you should do it,” he said firmly, thinking of their exchange the first they’d met. Maybe Jongdae had just needed some time to believe it himself.

Or maybe the change was in both of them. He’d spoken from the heart this time, Suho thought. It felt like the words came from the real him, not the celebrity face. He smiled at Jongdae, suddenly feeling like a weight had been lifted, and the lightness turned into giddiness when Jongdae smiled back, his eyes turning soft. Maybe this whole mess – dying, struggling to come back to life – maybe, in some weird way, they’d both needed it. He felt like they might be alright.

 

 

  


_We should take the bus,_ Jongdae wrote.

“It seems a little anticlimactic to go to the boss battle by bus.”

 _You play too many video games,_ Jongdae wrote immediately. _I’m not walking up a mountain._

“I think it’s better to walk. If we lose, this is the end for us. If I’m going to die for real today, I want to see everything I can, take in nature one last time.” Suho looked down at his phone where their final mission waited for him on the screen. 'Defeat the game master at Seoul Tower. No time limit.'

 _What’s there to see? It’s just a bunch of trees._ Jongdae wrinkled his nose. It was a cute look on him. Suho tried not to stare.

“Those might be the last trees we ever see!” Suho protested, but Jongdae was already typing away.

_I’m not walking up the mountain, hyung. We’re going to be tired._

“When have we gotten tired from walking this entire week?” Suho protested, but Jongdae wasn’t done.

_Besides, you have to walk up a little after you get off the bus anyway. That’s enough for you to take in nature before we kick this guy’s ass._

“How do we even know we’ll be able to use a vehicle? We haven’t taken the metro or anything, maybe it doesn’t work in the UG.”

 _You’re wearing clothes we bought like two days ago in a department store even though we’re dead,_ Jongdae wrote. Suho read it in his most deadpan inner-Jongdae-voice. _I don’t think we’re going to phase through the floor of the bus._

“These could be our last hours of existence. We could _die_ ,” Suho stressed. Jongdae stared at him, unmoved. “What if we just get off the bus at the bottom of the mountain?” He suggested when Jongdae wrote nothing further. “Then we don’t have to walk the whole way and I can still mentally prepare myself for the fight.”

 _You mean overthink it and stress yourself out,_ Jongdae wrote, but he agreed.

Getting on the bus was weird. He hadn’t taken public transportation anywhere since he was younger; after he’d debuted as an actor all his transportation had to be conducted in cars with blacked out windows and a security guard, leaving from back entrances or at odd hours to keep the amount of fans mobbing him at a minimum. He didn’t even have a fare card anymore. Jongdae had taken his out automatically when the bus pulled up to the stop – not for them, naturally, but for the two other people also waiting to take it who were alive and visible – and had slowly tucked it back in his wallet when he remembered that the driver wouldn’t be able to see them anyway. They’d had to rush to get on it before the doors closed.

The held on awkwardly to the handrails as the bus wound its way through the streets. Suho watched the display, swaying with the motion of the bus. As their stop was coming up, he felt a tug on his sleeve at his elbow.

 _So,_ Jongdae had written. _We’re already on the bus._

“We’re getting off here,” Suho protested as they approached the curb. “You said yes, Jongdae!”

_All we have to do is just stay on it…_

“We’re getting off,” Suho said firmly. The driver opened the doors and passengers began to file in. Jongdae didn’t budge. “Jongdae!”

They had a silent staring match which lasted all of the twenty seconds it took for the driver to flick the doors closed immediately after the last passenger and zip away from the stop. “You’re so stubborn,” Suho griped. Jongdae laughed soundlessly at him. “Yeah, okay, we both are,” Suho allowed. It was hard to stay annoyed when Jongdae looked so amused.

 

The walk up the mountain from the bus stop was longer than he remembered. “Wow, look, you can see right out across the city,” Suho remarked as they hiked up the incline. He was pretty in shape, but – it was steep. He was slightly out of breath. “There’s the river.”

 _I was right, wasn’t I?_ Jongdae grinned triumphantly.

“We are getting to prepare,” Suho admitted somewhat grudgingly. “I guess it would have been a little hot if we’d walked the whole way.”

Jongdae erased the text until only _I was right_ remained and raised his eyebrows teasingly. Suho laughed despite himself.

When they reached the top of the hill, the open ground of Seoul Tower was eerily silent. Suho had only been once or twice, but where normally there wouldhave been a sea of tourists, now there was only a single figure, waiting by the old guard wall with his back to them. Suho cast a heavy look at Jongdae and they stepped forward. The man turned to watch them as they approached, looking somehow perfectly at home in the historical backdrop. He had large dark eyes set in a serious face, his frame small but wiry. He had no visible wings anywhere on his back. Suho wondered if it was a sign of rank.

"Congratulations on making it to the final day," he said when they came to a halt a few feet away. Suho glanced around once, wary of a trap. The man's voice was quiet but melodic; if the area hadn't been empty it would have been hard to hear him. "I'm the game master for this week, Do Kyungsoo. Your mission today is to win against me. Are you ready?"

It was more formal than he'd expected, considering the way they'd been attacked suddenly and unexpectedly by noise and reapers alike all week. Suho glanced over. Jongdae gave him a steadying look, his expression confident. "We're ready," Suho confirmed, looking back at Kyungsoo.

What happened next wasn't what he'd been expecting. Instead of summoning noise to fight them, Kyungsoo's form wavered and shifted, his body growing and reforming in rapid motion, becoming more animalistic, as though he himself were transforming into a noise. He had changed into some kind of enormous werewolf-like monster, his teeth long and yellow, grey-blue fur covering his body and his clothes expanding to fit his new form. It was surreal.

Suho had little time to stare, however, because as soon as he'd transformed, Kyungsoo was barreling towards them. He was fast - and, Suho realized as he easily sliced through a metal sign inches from where his head had been, more than fast he was strong. Jongdae seemed to have picked up on it too, because he was focusing on keeping plenty of distance from the reaper, attacking from a safe ten meters away.

They fell back on strategies they'd worked out over the week of fighting noise, Jongdae keeping his distance and his footwork light while Suho attacked from the sides and back. It wasn't long before Kyungsoo figured out their plans, though, and they found out very quickly that his claws were not all they had to be wary of. When he stamped his foot on the ground, everything shook violetly, throwing both of them off their feet. Suho had to roll rapidly down an incline to get enough space to clamber to his feet, and even then it was probably only months of learning martial arts for some of his movie roles that kept him flexible enough to get out of the way of Kyungsoo's claws. Jongdae's face was tense when he caught sight of him, circling back around so they were closer together and could attack in tandem.

It was a long battle, the both of them giving everything they had. It would have been impossible for one person to fight Kyungsoo alone; he was stronger than they were even combined and clearly experienced in fighting. Suho wondered more than once as they struggled to keep their footing and cover for each other how many players had gotten to this point only to meet their ends at the hands of the game master.

He could tell Jongdae was getting tired. The battle had drawn on for longer than any other of their fights, even the terrible struggle against the noise in Hanok village. He wasn't much better off himself. All of his pins were hitting Kyungsoo, but none of them seemed to be slowing him down. If it was a battle of attrition, he had a terrible feeling that Kyungsoo could win, even against the both of them working together. Even as he was trying to come up with what else he could use or what weak spots Kyungsoo might have, he was knocked off balance by another vicious shaking of the ground beneath their feet. Jongdae seemed to have been similarly off guard; he stumbled into Suho heavily, his arms splayed out to balance himself. Suho looked up to see Kyungsoo running right at them – he could move aside, but there was no time for both he and Jongdae to get out of the way.

There was still one thing he hadn't tried. Suho fumbled frantically for the pin he'd gotten on their second day, the elegant white and silver design. He'd never quite figured out how to use it, but something about it felt right, in this moment. Jongdae was hurrying to get his bearings beside him, but they only had a second until Kyungsoo would be on them. Suho’s hand closed on the pin and he focused all his strength, thinking desperately how Jongdae would be ripped apart in an instant if this attempt didn’t work. Something about his will must have activated the pin, or maybe it was Jongdae’s proximity. He felt an incredible pressure inside his ribcage, like the energy from the pin was reverberating around and trying to find some way out. It needed a channel. In front of him, Kyungsoo drew back an arm, his claws gleaming. On instinct he grabbed for Jongdae’s hand with left. Whatever had been building from the pin surged through the both of them like white hot electricity. It felt a little like being burned from the inside, but Suho held on determinedly, feeling some kind of pulse of energy rocketing through and out of his body, slamming into Kyungsoo and knocking him backward with enough force to send him slamming into the old fire signal pits built up around the edge of the walkway.

There was a long moment where they stared as Kyungsoo struggled to get back to his feet, swaying as though a breeze could knock him over. He took a single step, and then Kyungsoo at last fell to his knees, his body shrinking again back to its human appearance, his fur receding into nothingness and his claws becoming normal human hands again, small against the rough rocks lining the ground. "Not bad," he said, his voice still so serious and calm even as he pressed a hand to the wound they'd left on his chest. "Mission complete."

"Well done!" Called another voice, and there was the sound of clapping. It was strangely familiar, he'd hear it somewhere before, but it--

Suho whirled around to see a figures striding across the plaza towards them. "You're a reaper?" he asked blankly, staring at Sehun, the teenage store clerk they'd met days ago.

“Everyone needs a day job,” said Sehun airily. "I see you've met the game master for this week. Nice job, Kyungsoo. I thought you were going to win there for a bit." There was something distinctly different about the man that was speaking. If Suho hadn't recognized him as the store clerk he would have never thought they were the same person. The man in front of him was collected and confident, speaking with authority.

"What happens to us now?" he asked, watching Sehun warily. "Are you... the one in charge of all this?"

Sehun looked approvingly at him. "Yes," he said simply. "I'm the composer of this game. And you two are the first to win in quite a while. Congratulations." He spoke smoothly, glancing over the two of them as though sizing them up in a glance. “Your entry fees will be returned to you, once I’ve decided what happens to you.”

“We’re not…” Suho looked at Jongdae in confusion, but he looked just as bewildered. “We’re not going back to life?”

Sehun let him sweat for a moment before he answered. “It’s not common, actually. Most winners become high level reapers like Kyungsoo here. The lower levels are usually losers that were recruited instead of being erased. You could be a game master yourself, if you’re good.” He gazed steadily at Suho. “But I think that’s not what you want, is it?”

It was Jongdae who stepped forward, meeting Sehun’s eyes confidently and shaking his head. Suho joined him, silently standing with him. Sehun smiled.

“I thought so. How about this – I’ll make you a deal.”

“What kind of deal?” Suho asked warily.

Sehun sighed. “For me, this city is like a part of myself. When it suffers, I suffer with it. You know what I mean?” Jongdae was nodding. Suho waited for Sehun to continue, wondering where this was going. “I’ll give you both your lives back – on the condition that you use your voices,” he looked at Jongdae and raised his eyebrow pointedly, his smile turning amused, “to ask the people of this city to take care of it again. Look out for one another, don’t ignore the other people in the street. Clean up the sidewalks if there’s trash. Donate food or time to the people here that need it. Everyone lives their life as though it’s its own little world, without thinking about how that world contacts others. I want you to open up people’s worlds.” He looked between Suho and Jongdae. “That shouldn’t be too much to ask for a celebrity and a – a teacher, wasn’t it?”

He couldn’t really believe it was happening. Suho looked over again at Jongdae as though in a dream, but he didn’t need to have bothered. Jongdae had grabbed his hand firmly, lacing their fingers together as though it were the most natural thing in the world. Suho felt a sudden rush of emotion that threatened to choke him up. “We can do it,” he told Sehun, even as Jongdae nodded beside him.

“I’m glad to hear it,” said Sehun, and he looked suddenly more like a teenager again. “I’ll be checking up on you, you know. Don’t forget.”

There was a sudden strange feeling in Suho’s middle, like he was being pulled backward. He jolted, feeling his feet giving way underneath him.

“Don’t worry,” said Sehun’s voice from somewhere far above. “You’ll wake up in no time.”  


 

 

 

When he came to in the hospital, his manager hovering over his bedside, the doctors told him his injuries were minimal. "You were very lucky," the head doctor informed him sternly. "That crash could have killed you, but fortunately both you and the other driver were okay." He gestured at the bed at Junmyeon's right, where the curtains were pulled around so the occupant wasn't visible.

His manager fussed over him until the nurse assigned to Junmyeon ushered him out of the room, insisting he get some rest. Junmyeon sighed. There was already a pile of fan mail on the bedside table, undoubtedly from fans who had heard about the crash. They apparently missed the memo that he hadn’t really been hurt. Well, sort of, anyway. He wondered where Jongdae was waking up, if he had any injuries more serious than the sprained wrist and bruises he was waking up with.

“Are they gone?” came a voice from the bed beside him. It sounded like a man his age speaking, smooth and deep. Junmyeon swung his legs over the side of the bed to perch on the edge of the mattress, ignoring the stiffness in his muscles. The curtain rustled as the other occupant started to pull it back.

“Yes,” he said politely. “I’m sorry if they were being loud. I’m Junmyeon, and—“

The words died in his throat as the curtain on the other bed drew back to reveal a familiar face grinning at him as though he’d just won the lottery. “Nice to meet you, Junmyeon,” said Jongdae. “I think we have a date at the river bank today, don’t we?”

Junmyeon smiled so wide it felt like his face might split in two.

“I believe we do.”


End file.
